


(wise men say) only fools rush in

by singsongsung, sylwrites



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe, F/M, the trash bin is open for business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-18 13:40:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13101339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylwrites/pseuds/sylwrites
Summary: He walks over to her and surprises her by reaching for her left hand. He lifts it up, and she’s startled to see that she’s wearing two diamond rings. She stares at them, her hungover brain not fully understanding their significance - and then Jughead lifts his left hand to show her a silver ring on his own fourth finger.Her breath catches in her throat, and for a moment, she feels dizzy. “Ohmygod,” she says, the words rushed together. “Ohmygod.”...Or, Betty and Jughead get accidentally-married in Las Vegas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We're baa-aack! The trash bin is open for business.

Jughead wakes with a pounding headache and a fierce distaste for the sunlight streaming in through the window of his hotel room. His mouth is dry and his teeth feel mossy, and _god,_ he needs to go back to sleep.

He forces himself to open one eye and croaks, “Archie, close the fucking curtains,” only to catch a flash of blonde hair. For the briefest of seconds, his immediate thought is that _fuck,_ Archie brought a girl who is _not_ his dark-haired fiancée back to their shared hotel room, followed by another brief moment of intense anger on behalf of Veronica. He sits up, intending to swiftly and immediately berate him, and it’s then that he realizes: this is not his hotel room, the blonde is in bed with _him,_ and they are both naked.

The girl, still asleep, rolls over onto her back. The blankets are bunched around her waist, so her breasts sway ever-so-slightly with the movement, and it’s because of Jughead’s hungover fixation on their perfect shape that it takes him an extra moment to realize that the girl in bed with him is _Betty Cooper._

Her arm comes to rest across her abdomen, and he spots something curious: a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Jughead frowns; Betty’s not married, or engaged, or even seeing anyone as far as he knows. He raises his own hand to sweep the hair out of his eyes, and the same godforsaken sunlight that woke him up now glints against something that will _definitely_ preclude any chance of him going back to sleep: a ring.

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**one day earlier**

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Jughead drops his old, well-worn duffel on the immaculate floor of a place he’d never thought he’d be: a hotel room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. A hotel room that he’s sharing with someone who can eminently and accurately be described as a _bro_ : Archie Andrews, also known as the guy that his best friend Veronica is marrying.

It’s not that Jughead doesn’t like Archie. On the contrary: of all of the people he’s had to meet through Veronica, Archie is one of the best. There’s even a possibility that they may have been friends had they met in the absence of Veronica, which is not something that Jughead can say for most people. He’s friendly, likes video games, and loves Veronica, which is all Jughead ever wanted for her, really. _He_ is not the issue.

No; the problem, as it were, is that _because_ Archie decided to ask Veronica to marry him, a series of wedding-related social requirements was set into motion, including this penultimate event: a joint bachelor and bachelorette party. In _Las Vegas,_ of all fucking places, because - well, it’s Veronica. Jughead would have expected nothing less. He’d just hoped that he would have managed somehow to get out of going.

Getting drunk in Vegas with a whole bunch of dude-bros that he doesn’t know, Veronica, and her posse of bridesmaids, most of whom he basically just tolerates for her sake - it’s not really his scene. Jughead sighs and stares out the window; it’s amazing, really, the things he does for Veronica.

“You want the bed by the window or the bathroom?”

Jughead turns to see Archie standing between the two queen beds, holding his own bag up expectantly. He supposes that he should be grateful that Archie agreed to share a room with him - two starving artists deserve one another, after all. Both of them had needed to split the cost of this place, so it worked well, but he is slightly afraid that he will not be able to handle an alcohol-ravaged Archie in quite the same way that he can wrangle Veronica, who is decidedly lighter and easier to help while vomiting.

“Window is fine,” Jughead says, shrugging. “Or bathroom. Whichever you don’t want.”

Archie looks at the two beds and then to the corner of the room where the ensuite is. He chooses the bed furthest from the window. “I’m thinking I might need the proximity to the bathroom,” he says wryly.

Jughead smiles.

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His hands fly across his laptop keyboard, fingers tapping out a rapid pattern that hopefully spells the last of the revisions he’ll need for this article. His room is empty save for himself and the empty cup of hotel coffee beside him, Archie having left long ago to find Veronica. Jughead knows he’s supposed to be out with them and the rest of the group for the first part of this nightmarish adventure, but he _needs_ to send this in, and this is likely his only moment of silence for the weekend.

His phone buzzes beside him. **_Get your ass down to the pool, Jug._**

Jughead sighs and turns back to his laptop, frantically searching for a better rephrasing of the last paragraph. He’s not out to ruin Veronica’s weekend, so he does want to participate, even if just to make an old friend happy, but he’d also be lying if he said that he hadn’t maybe intentionally left some work for this afternoon so that he could skip the pool part. Swimming’s not really his thing - he’s not out of shape, exactly, but he’s seen Archie and some of his friends shirtless multiple times (a startlingly common occurrence at the most unlikely of events, like movie nights), and he is definitely _not_ one of them.

Veronica has gorgeous girl friends too, of course, a near-literal bevy of them, but - well, Jughead just doesn’t _like_ most of them. They’re society people, the embodiment of all of the things that separates himself from Veronica to begin with, and most of them have looked at him with confusion and derision throughout the years, as if to ask why _Veronica Lodge_ associates herself with someone like him to begin with. A charity case, they think. She’s helping the downtrodden.

The fucking _downtrodden._

 _ **The cabana has a minibar, if that sways you,**_ Veronica messages further, but it’s **_Jughead, you promised_** that gets him to strike a final key. He sends the article to his editor, closes the laptop, and changes quickly into his swimming trunks. They’re blue and much nicer than his old trunks, a gift from Veronica just before they’d left. She said they matched his eyes, which seems ridiculous to Jughead, because it’s not like anyone is going to be matching irises to bathing suits.

He grabs a t-shirt, a book, and makes his way down to the pool. Veronica’s reserved two cabanas side-by-side, both with TVs, minibars, and lounge chairs aplenty. Jughead can hear the group before he sees them - varying shrieks of “Archie!” and “oh my _god!”_ are not exactly quiet - but it’s still a sight to behold nonetheless. The collection of Archie’s friends all together makes for a vaguely homoerotic image, since they’re all hanging off each other and alternating which muscles to flex in some kind of competition. Jughead fights the urge to shake his head at all of them, friendly though most of them are, and flicks his eyes over to the girls.

It’s not much better. Some of them are staring at the guys, a couple others are on their phones, and they’re _all_ positioned for both optimal instagram-posing and tanning. Jughead is honestly not sure which group he’d rather sit with less.

Then, he sees her: sitting off to the side, sunglasses on and ponytail up, wearing a truly unfairly cut bikini in a light pink colour, seemingly about three-quarters of the way through _Under the Banner of Heaven_.

 _Right._ Jughead had forgotten about Betty Cooper.

He supposes in many ways that she is his counterpart for the other side - Archie’s oldest friend, the girl he’d grown up next door to in a hick town in upstate New York. It’s interesting, Jughead thinks, that Veronica and Archie would each have best friends of the opposite gender, both decidedly unromantic in nature. In what he imagines to have been some kind of horse-trade, Betty is one of Veronica’s bridesmaids and Jughead a groomsman, so they’ve both been present for various friend group events over the course of Veronica and Archie’s relationship, both wedding-related and not.

Still, he doesn’t know Betty that well, apart from that she is also a writer of some sort and that she teaches yoga on the side for extra cash. She’s objectively beautiful, too, that much is harder to avoid, but it’s her genuine kindness that has always struck Jughead most prominently. She’s just fucking _nice,_ and in complete honesty, knowing that Archie’s best friend was somebody like Betty made Jughead like him just that much more as a match for _his_ best friend.

There’s an empty lounge chair beside Betty. Jughead makes his way over and sets his book down on it. “Anyone sitting here?” he asks.

Betty looks up at him. “Oh, nope!” she says, smiling at him. “Be my guest, please.”

He sits and spends a minute squinting at the sun before Betty’s voice distracts him once more.

“Didn’t know if you were gonna make it down to the pool,” she says conversationally. “Veronica seemed worried.”

Jughead laughs. “Yeah. Veronica is always worried about me. I was just finishing up an article.” He glances over his shoulder and then turns back, adding, “Not exactly my scene, though, that’s true.”

Betty looks over as well. “Yeah, I get that. The guys can be … an intimidating group. I grew up with most of them; sometimes I’m convinced that’s the only reason I even like half of them,” she jokes.

As if on queue, a stray beach ball lands itself on the bottom of Betty’s lounge chair, by her feet. Reggie Mantle, a tall, well-built guy with a million-dollar smile that Jughead _thinks_ played football with Archie in high school and college, runs up to them.

“Sorry, Betty,” he apologizes. “Moose has terrible aim.”

“Your mom has terrible aim!” Moose yells back, grinning at a couple of the other guys when they clap him on the shoulder as if to say _yeah bro, good joke!_

Betty politely hands Reggie the inflatable ball. “No problem, Reggie,” she says. “Have fun.”

Reggie winks at Betty. “We’d have more fun if you’d play with us, baby Cooper,” he says smoothly, dragging his eyes down her body. “Or you could just play with me,” he suggests, waggling his eyebrows.

Jughead looks at him with awe, unable to believe that anyone could think that line would work at all on a girl like Betty.

Betty regards him with disinterest. “Do you remember when I kicked you in third grade soccer, Reggie? Right in the balls? No? If you keep staring at my boobs, I’ll give you a repeat performance.”

Reggie holds his hands up. “Okay, okay, message received. What about you, Jughead? Wanna play?”

It takes everything in Jughead’s power not to laugh at the very suggestion. “Uh, no thanks,” he says instead, holding his book up. “Gonna get some reading in.”

Reggie raises an eyebrow at him but shrugs and walks away, mumbling something about the “nerd corner”. Once he’s out of earshot, Jughead turns to Betty. “What were you saying about liking those guys?”

“I said half of them,” Betty teases, smiling at Jughead. “Reggie’s a bit of an asshole sometimes but he’s been a good friend to Archie.”

Jughead stares at her. “He propositioned you!”

“I mean, yeah, he does that from time to time.” Betty makes a face. “But he doesn’t actually mean it. I see your point, though. Reggie is maybe not the best example. Moose is a way better representative dude-bro from that group. Really nice; dated my friend Kevin for a while, so I got to know him even better through him.”

“Noted.” Jughead nods his head toward her book. “I see great minds think alike,” he says, holding up his own poolside reading. “Not a wild party animal either?”

“I’m pacing myself.” Betty taps a tall glass of clear liquid beside her. “I told Archie it was vodka but it’s water,” she explains. “I promised him I’d make it past midnight for the party tonight, so I’m saving the hard stuff for later.” She grins. “But yeah, you’re right. I’m not really one to let loose.”

Jughead nods slowly. “Well, we can be sober friends together,” he offers. He gives her a half-smile then turns back to his book, content that maybe this weekend won’t be totally awkward.

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Seven hours, one wardrobe change, and multiple tequila shots later, Jughead is officially drunk.

He’s dressed in the button-down shirt and slacks required to get into the Cosmopolitan’s Marquee nightclub, but there’s a fairly significant chance that his dress shoes will have vomit on them by the end of the night. He’s making a prediction now - it might not be his, but it’ll be there, at least at this rate.

He blames Betty. They’d had a deal: hang out, be semi-sober together, keep each other company.

Two out of three isn’t bad, he supposes.

Betty’s with him in the nightclub, having glued herself to his side fairly early in the night after one too many unwanted suitors had attempted to buy her drinks. He gets it; he wouldn’t want to be a single woman in this environment either, and at least this way there’s some kind of assumption that if they’re together, no other guys will attempt to talk to her. It’s mostly worked, both to his relief and equal disgust - he’s a feminist, and it’s fucking appalling that _no thank you_ is somehow not enough for some guys - but if she needs to have a shield, Jughead’s not exactly mad that it’s him.

For one, Betty really is much more interesting than most of Veronica _or_ Archie’s friends, all of whom seem to be thriving in the dark, bass-heavy environment of the club. He doesn’t mind spending time with her. At least they have shit to talk about besides the quality of the gin.

And - yeah, okay, he can admit it: she looks incredibly hot tonight, all toned legs and soft curves in a tight green miniskirt, strappy heels, and a black tank top with a low scoop neck that says _Team Bride_ across the chest. There are worse people to have hanging off his arm.

Unfortunately, their mutual discomfort with the club atmosphere drove them early on to challenge one another - he’s not sure who started it, but there’s a not insignificant chance that it was him - to a game involving taking shots every time Reggie struck out with a girl. That had escalated to include all of the groomsmen, and now, Jughead feels himself reaching the morose stage of drunkenness.

“I can’t believe they’re getting fucking married,” he says to Betty, pointing at Veronica and Archie, who are making out on the dance floor.

“I know,” Betty responds in a mournful tone. “Archie’s like family. It’s like watching your little brother get married and move out of the house.”

Jughead drops his hand onto her knee and starts rubbing it absentmindedly. Realization of what he’s doing hits him far too late to move it, so he stops rubbing and instead leaves his hand there, heavy and still. “Veronica’s my only family,” he tells Betty, half-shouting into her ear.

Betty quirks her head toward him and makes a sad face, then grabs his hand from her leg. She stands up, tugs him to his feet, and mouths, “Come on,” before pulling him through the crowd.

He follows, because he’s not going to do anything else right now, and when he notices that she’s taking them to the quieter pool deck half of the club, he’s grateful.

“What were you saying in there?” Betty asks, leaning against a railing and looping her fingertips through his belt loops. “Sorry, it was so _loud.”_

“No problem,” Jughead breezes, settling a hand on the railing behind Betty and only vaguely registering her hands at his waist. “I was just saying, Ronnie’s my only family, really. I’ve known her longer than anyone, and - I dunno, don’t get me wrong, I like Archie a lot. But it feels like I’m losing her, kinda.”

Betty’s bottom lip pouts outward. “Jug,” she says softly, raising a hand to his cheek. “You’re not losing anyone. She’s just getting married. She’s still your best friend. And besides, next it’ll be your turn to make a little family!”

Jughead gives her a look. “You don’t know me well enough in that case,” he says, leaning into her palm anyway. “Not to be Mindy Lahiri, but I _will_ die alone. That’s obvious.”

“Jughead!” Betty exclaims, her jaw dropping. “You will _not._ A girl will come along and sweep you off your feet. Or a guy. Hey, you _might_ be Kevin’s type.”

He chuckles a little. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but my entire life says otherwise.”

“What, not successful with the ladies?” she asks, throwing air quotes around the last two words and exaggerating them with derision.

Jughead rolls his eyes. “It’s not that. It’s - now is not the time to get into it. I’m just not cut out for that kind of happiness, is all. Bottom line.”

“What kind of happiness is that?” Betty asks, and _now_ he notices her hands, since one of them has dropped from his cheek and is resting, palm flat, on his chest.

He stares at her. “With a family. Wife, kids, all that. I’m not exactly marriage material.”

She frowns again. “That’s not true. Look at you - you’re smart, and hot. You don’t seem like a total dick. A-plus marriage material for any girl.”

Jughead scoffs. “Yeah right, any girl. Would _you_ marry me?”

Betty bites her lower lip and steps even closer to him, looking up through heavily sooted lashes. “Yes, Juggie. A thousand times yes!”

He laughs and pulls her in for a hug, letting his hands slide a little too easily over her back and waist. “Thanks, Betty.”

“I mean it,” she insists, pushing against him a little to meet his eyes again. Hers are wide and green, bright and shiny, honest and open. It’s refreshing.

He tilts his head, a smile playing on the corner of his lips. What happens next, he imagines later, must be driven purely by the sheer quantity of tequila he’s consumed and only a _little_ by the sparkle in her eyes and the shine of her lip gloss.

“Okay, Miss Cooper,” Jughead says slowly, squeezing her hip. “Then prove it.”

 

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Betty’s pleasantly drunk by the time they stumble out of their Lyft and into a Zales outlet with eight minutes to spare before closing, the kind of drunk that only champagne - flutes of which were repeatedly handed to her as the girls got ready together - can give her, gleeful and energized. The tequila shots she drank on top of the champagne have added a serious case of the giggles into the mix, and Jughead presses a hand against the small of her back and puts his mouth near her ear, murmuring, “Shh, be cool,” to her as they enter the store, which doesn’t exactly lessen her amusement.

Nonetheless, she stifles her laughter, and they walk up to a display case of rings with as much poise as two drunk people can muster.

“Hi,” she says brightly to the salesperson behind the display case. “I need a ring, please.”

The salesperon’s eyebrow tips up ever-so-slightly, but Betty, who grew up beneath Alice Cooper’s expressive eyebrows, isn’t the least bit fazed. When the salesperson asks if she’s looking for an engagement ring, she nods and says, “Yes.”

“And a wedding band,” Jughead reminds her, fingers poking gently into her kidneys.

“Oh - yes,” Betty says. “Yes. Both, please. And under - ” She glances at Jughead for his input.

“Uh.” His brow crinkles in thought. “Under… one hundred? If that’s possible?”

“It’s possible,” the salesperson says, waving at them to indicate that they should follow as she heads toward a display case closer to the back of the store. “Your options will be limited, but - ”

Betty stops listening, then, because Jughead’s fingers are ghosting over either side of her ribcage, tickling lightly, and her giggles are back. This time, though, it’s not her who swallows them, but him, when he covers her mouth with his own. It’s only the second time he’s kissed her - the first was back at the Cosmopolitan, when they were waiting for their ride - and this kiss, like the last, causes a little twist of a thrill in her belly in its newness and its boldness and its _goodness_. Jughead’s tongue is in her mouth and her fingers are in his hair when the salesperson clears her throat and informs them that the store closes in five minutes.

“And I imagine your friends are waiting,” she says, nodding at Betty’s _Team Bride_ shirt.

“Right, our friends,” Betty says, attempting to adopt a serious expression as she finds Jughead’s hand with her own, tangles their fingers together, and squeezes.

“If you’re looking for a set, these are your choices,” the salesperson says, setting two small boxes on the countertop.

In one set, the engagement ring is understated, a single small princess-cut diamond on a band. It’s the set Betty gravitates toward, but Jughead reaches out before she can and picks up the other set, which features many tiny diamonds on both bands, and a sizeable heart composed of diamonds at the centre of the engagement ring.

“This one, right?” he says. “I mean, you’d want people to _see_ the ring, wouldn't you? If you were really going to marry someone?”

The dare in his voice is obvious, and Betty’s never been one to back down from a challenge. “We’ll take it,” she tells the salesperson sunnily.

“It’s a six and a half.”

That’s half a size too big, but Betty just nods. “And a ring for h - for our other friend, too. A men’s wedding band.”

Two minutes later, after Jughead’s wrestled his finger in and out of a ring sizer a couple times ("His hand is _just_ like our friend's," Betty tells the increasingly skeptical saleswoman),and selected a plain stainless steel band, they each hand over their credit cards. Betty pays for his ring with his hands resting on her hips, his lips a hairsbreadth above her shoulder.

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Outside the store, they stand together in the pale blue-grey light; Betty suspects that Las Vegas, like New York, never gets truly _dark_. After a moment of studying the sky, she turns to Jughead and finds that he’s already looking at her.

“Do you need anything else?” he asks. “A dress? A veil? A garter?”

“Everything’s closing,” she points out.

“This is Vegas, Betty. I can find you a wedding dress after eleven p.m.”

She smiles softly, and wonders, “Are we really - ”

Jughead cuts off her sentence with a kiss, his mouth hot against hers. She presses her body into his, two of her fingers toying idly with the collar of his shirt. “Yes,” he says as they pull apart, smiling at her. It’s a little goofy, that smile, and totally unguarded, and Betty is about to kiss it again when it abruptly disappears, and he says, “If you still - ”

She takes her cue from him and interrupts his thought with her mouth. “Yes,” she says, right against his lips, and is pleased when his mouth curls back into a smile against hers. She’s drunk and a bit hazy-minded, but the image of his face as he told her that Veronica was his only family, that he felt like he was losing her and that he wasn’t ‘cut out’ to ever gain anyone else - that _look_ he was wearing, like he’d really _believed_ it - is burned into her brain.

Jughead brushes his knuckles over her jaw and then slides his hand into her hair, running his fingers through curls that are already falling out after hours of following Veronica’s Vegas itinerary. “We need a chapel, then,” he says.

Betty nods and inches just a little bit closer to him, so that the toes of their shoes are touching. She takes in his dress shoes, his slacks, and his nice shirt, and says, “You look good tonight,” because she’s not sure that she’s mentioned that to him yet.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he teases her.

She laughs. “I mean, you look good in all your flannel, too - ”

“Bet _you’d_ look good in my flannel,” he says quietly, almost to himself, his hand cupping the back of her head as he kisses her.

She pokes a finger into his chest as she leans back. “You’re _flirting_ ,” she says.

“You’re _marrying_ me,” he volleys back.

His words pull their intentions for the night back to the forefront of her mind. “A chapel,” she says.

“Right.” Jughead pulls his phone out of his pocket - Betty doesn’t have hers, having left her hotel room with only her room key and a credit card tucked into her bra, and it was his phone they’d used to discover that there were jewellery store outlets not terribly far from their hotel. For a man who’d told her less than an hour before that he didn’t picture himself getting married, his assistance that wedding rings be procured was striking, and sort of charming in its traditionalism.

Watching him type out _24 hour wedding chapel vegas_ on his phone’s tiny keyboard, Betty feels impatient. “Let’s just get a Lyft,” she says, “and trust our driver to take us to a good one.”

“Betty, this is your _wedding day_ \- or night,” Jughead says, his expression overly serious. “Do you really trust your Lyft driver to pick the venue?”

“Yes,” she says easily. “I am very, very chill. I am the kind of bride Veronica is always pretending to be.”

Jughead grabs her hand. “She called me in tears over the silverware, Betty. Over the _silverware_.”

She smiles at him, but she feels very serious when she says, “I don’t want that. I don’t want everything to be perfect.” That word, that descriptor that other people aspire to, that feels to them like a compliment or an award - it’s a chain around Betty’s neck, a weight holding her down, and she wants to break free. “I want our Lyft driver to pick our venue.”

“Your wish is my command,” Jughead says. He squeezes her hand as he calls a car, and Betty squeezes back, leaning over to rest her cheek against his shoulder.

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Their driver drops them off at a chapel, where they’re greeted by an energetic woman who congratulates them, hands them each a plastic flute of champagne, and asks them if they have a marriage license yet. When they say no, she tells them that the county marriage bureau isn’t far, and gives them the address. She hands Betty a brochure full of wedding package options, and moments later, they find themselves in yet another car.

When they arrive, Betty writes her information on the form first, and then watches as Jughead completes the other sections, finishing off her flute of champagne.

“Forsythe?” she asks, as he writes down his legal name. “ _Forsythe Pendleton?_ ”

“The third,” he says on a long-suffering sigh.

There’s a fifteen-minute wait for the marriage license, so they sit down, and Betty flips through the brochure they were given at the chapel. “Oh,” she says, when she lands on a page with a picture of a nighttime ceremony taking place at an outdoor gazebo. “Forsythe, look.”

Jughead leans over. “I don’t know,” he says. “ _Forsythe_ was really hoping for an Elvis impersonator.”

Betty bites her bottom lip. “Jughead,” she corrects herself, her voice soft, “I want to do it at the gazebo.”

He gives her a little smile, one corner of his mouth tilting up further than the other. Something about it makes her heart flutter.

“Then we’ll do it at the gazebo,” he says.

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Getting married is a surprisingly uncomplicated affair. After nearly two years of fielding weekly phone calls from Veronica asking for her opinion on everything from shoes to the groomsmen’s ties to the cake topper to the seating chart, and subsequently fielding phone calls from Archie and listening while he complained that he just wanted to _marry_ this girl, not plan an event that would rival the Met Gala with her, Betty’s a bit stunned at how quickly she finds herself standing in front of an officiant with her hands clasped in Jughead Jones’.

All she has to do is repeat what the officiant says, and listen to Jughead do the same. This, too, seems very easy, given that she’s spent the past two months editing Archie’s vows so thoroughly that she’s basically ended up writing them for him. She voices promises that millions and millions of people have made before her, and then she becomes the first person to ever slide a ring on Jughead’s finger, wiggling the band past his knucklebone.

The officiant pronounces them man and wife. They kiss, Jughead’s hands finding her hips and holding her tightly while her hands press against his chest. Someone snaps a polaroid. The witness signs their marriage license. Soft white lights twinkle through the vines that cover the gazebo, and Jughead rests his forehead lightly against hers.

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On the drive back to the Cosmopolitan, Jughead holds her left hand and looks at the two new rings on her finger. He touches the gaudy heart composed of diamonds and murmurs, “Holy shit.”

Betty’s eyes fly to his face, but before she can even attempt to read his expression, he’s kissing her, hard, leaning over her in the backseat so that her body is pressed into the corner formed by the seat and the door. She lifts both of her hands to his cheeks and skims her thumbs over his skin.

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By the time they’re back in her hotel room, a fair amount of Betty’s alcohol-induced buzz has worn off, but the buzz running through her body thanks to a rush of adrenaline is still going strong. She and Jughead sit on the floor and laugh as they dig through the mini bar; she selects a tiny bottle of sambuca, he chooses one of whiskey, and they toast before they tip the contents of the bottles into their mouths.

Empty bottles discarded, they start to kiss, and Betty slowly makes her way into his lap, her skirt riding up her thighs. Jughead strokes his hands over her arms and legs, and he toys with the strap of her tank top on her shoulder, and then with her bra strap beneath it, but he makes no move to go any further.

Betty breaks their kiss and teases him breathlessly, “I’m your wife now. You can undress me.”

His eyes roam over her face and he murmurs her name very softly, almost reverently, “ _Betty._ ”

She peels her shirt up and over her head. She’s wearing one of her nicer bras, pale pink with a black lace overlay, and she smiles a little when his lips part as he stares at her chest.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. “You’re so beautiful.”

Betty begins to unbutton his shirt. “You’re not so bad yourself, Mr. Jones.”

His fingers toy with the clasp of her bra, but he doesn’t undo it, not yet. “Was thinking I’d take your name,” he says. “I’m a feminist.”

She laughs and kisses him quickly. “Okay, Mr. Cooper.”

“Sounds nice, right,” he murmurs, and then he dips his head to press kisses down the column of her neck, and Betty sighs, her hands abandoning their task with two of the buttons on his shirt still done, her head tipping back.

“Juggie,” she says softly, her voice nearly a whine.

“I know, baby,” he says against her skin, sucking gently at her pulse point. “I’m gonna fuck you so good.”

Betty shivers and echoes the words he spoke to her hours before: “Prove it.”

.  
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.  
.

 

**present**

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Betty wakes to the sensation of the sun burning at her eyelids, and she shifts, pouting a little as she lifts one hand to cover her eyes, the movement slow and sleepy. A moment later, when she’s slightly more awake, she realizes that she’s cold, and when she reaches out blindly for her blankets, she encounters her own skin, which is - weird. She doesn’t sleep naked.

She turns her head away from the sunlight, opens her eyes, and gasps, sitting up abruptly and yanking the sheets that are bunched around her waist up over her chest. Veronica’s best friend, Jughead, is next to her in bed, also apparently naked, his hair sticking up in a thousand directions and his eyes very wide in his face.

“What the - ” Betty begins, but she doesn’t get to finish her confused exclamation, because sitting up so quickly has caused a brutal headache to set in, pounding behind her eyes and in her skull and even down her neck, and right on its heels comes a wave of nausea that she can’t suppress. “Oh my god,” she breathes, and darts up out of the bed and to the ensuite bathroom, where she vomits until the back of her throat is burning.

After she’s washed her hands, she plucks the fluffy white bathrobe off of the back of the washroom’s door, slips her arms into it, and ties it securely, her fingers shaking slightly. She inches back into the bedroom slowly, hoping that Jughead’s presence may have been some kind of hangover hallucination.

It wasn’t. He’s still sitting on the bed, but now, thankfully, he’s wearing a pair of boxers and a ribbed undershirt.

“Hi,” she manages to say.

“Hey,” he replies, rubbing at one of his temples. “Are you okay?”

Betty doesn’t bother responding to that question. “We - we had sex?” she asks in a small voice that squeaks slightly.

“Seems that way,” Jughead agrees.

“Wow,” she murmurs. “Okay. Um. Okay.” She considers adding _I’ve never had a one night stand before_ , but she doesn’t. She hardly knows Jughead - he’s the best friend of the woman her own best friend is marrying, which doesn’t exactly make them close confidantes. Maybe he does this all the time.

“Betty,” he says, standing up slowly. “I, uh… I don’t think that’s all we did.”

She blinks at him. “What do you mean?”

He walks over to her and surprises her by reaching for her left hand. He lifts it up, and she’s startled to see that she’s wearing two diamond rings, one of which has a series of small diamonds formed into a fairly large heart. She stares at them, her hungover brain not fully understanding their significance - and then Jughead lifts his left hand to show her a silver ring on his own fourth finger.

Her breath catches in her throat, and for a moment, she feels dizzy. “Ohmygod,” she says, the words rushed together. “Ohmygod.”

Jughead holds onto her hand more firmly, as if he can sense that she’s about to start swaying. “Yeah,” he says. “My thoughts exactly.”

 

 

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a disclaimer, we've attempted to base as much of the legal aspects of this in reality as possible, but neither of us is a lawyer and we've [likely, almost definitely] bent some things to suit our plot needs.

Jughead stares at Betty’s hand, which is still clutched in his own, and at the rings they’re each wearing. This isn’t happening. He got _married,_ drunk. In _Las Vegas._ To a girl that he barely even knows.

He’s in a fucking Ashton Kutcher movie.

“Jughead, are you _sure?”_   Betty’s asking, eyes as wide and shocked as they can probably be given the sheer amount of alcohol they’d both consumed the previous night.

He drops her hand and then runs his fingers, slightly shaky, through his hair. “I think so.” He’s just extrapolating from context clues, because why else would they be wearing wedding rings after what is at least definitely an impulsive night together. Still, he can practically feel the anxiety radiating from her body, so to indulge her, Jughead goes over to where his slacks are crumpled on the floor and picks them up. He digs into one of the pockets and finds his cell phone; a search in the other produces a folded sheet of paper. 

He takes a deep breath and opens it.

 _Shit._ “Well, it’s a marriage certificate,” Jughead says weakly, holding the paper out to Betty.

She takes it, her fingers shaking. “Oh my god,” she breathes. “Elizabeth Cooper and Forsythe Pendleton Jones - oh _no.”_ Her eyes fill suddenly with tears, one hand curling itself into a fist around the neckline of her robe, and Jughead straightens his back in alarm.

“Betty-”

“What have we done?” she whispers, shaking her head slowly. “Oh my _god.”_ With one hand still clutching the hotel robe she’s wearing, Betty sinks down onto a chair and drops the paper onto the floor. She opens her mouth but says nothing; instead, her lower lip trembles and her throat makes a sad cracking sound.

Jughead crouches down in front of her chair, picks up the marriage certificate, and then gingerly puts a hand on her knee. “Betty, look, it’s going to be okay.”

Her head snaps to face him, a half-frown set in already. “How can you even say that? We got _married._ How did this even happen?!” 

He hesitates. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly, racking his brain for memories and coming up with only flashes. Flirting at the club. Kissing at a jewelry store. Lots of alcohol. “Tequila?” he suggests, offering a half-smile to try to calm her down.

“I’m never drinking again,” she moans, putting her face in her hands and leaning her elbows on her knees. “What are we going to do?”

Jughead stands up straight and walks over to his phone again, which is nearly dead thanks to being unplugged all night. “Get divorced?” he guesses, trying to figure out how best to Google _what to do if you get accidentally married._ “Or - wait, an annulment? Right?”

Betty lifts her head up, a glint of hope in her expression. “Right. We can get an annulment! Then it’s like - it’s like this never happened.” She turns to stare at him and Jughead is caught off guard by the purposeful intensity in her eyes and the sudden and strong set of her jaw. “We’re going to get dressed, grab a Lyft, then go and get ourselves an annulment.” She points at his pants, which he left laying on the floor after procuring the marriage certificate, and clears her throat. “Put your clothes on.”

“That’s not what you said last night,” Jughead jokes. The words come out like a reflex, but the second they leave his lips, he regrets them. Betty raises both of her eyebrows at him, an almost-wounded expression falling onto her impossibly pretty face, and he swallows hard. “Sorry. Bad joke,” he apologizes. He grabs his pants from the floor and slips a leg in. “Look, I’m getting dressed, see?”

“Yeah, I see.” Betty clears her throat and walks over to what Jughead assumes must be her suitcase, a neatly-packed carry on that seems to contain a lot of off-white and pastel. “Um. I’m going to change, if you could - just, uh, turn around until I say.”

It’s Jughead’s turn to raise an eyebrow. He wants to make a crack about how ridiculous the prospect is, logically, since they _clearly_ had sex last night and mutual nakedness was definitely a part of that, but truthfully, he gets it. This entire morning so far has been tremendously uncomfortable, and the worst of it all is, even if they go get an annulment and pretend, like Betty had declared, like ‘none of it ever happened’ - well, it still _did,_ and he still has to see Betty regularly, and even if his memory of their actual night together is fuzzy, the image of her naked in the morning is definitely not.

He turns his back dutifully and pulls on his pants and the button-up shirt that he’d worn to the club (and, apparently, to get married in). He leaves the majority of the buttons undone, figuring that it looks a little less formal and perhaps intentional rather than a clear walk-of-shame kind of outfit, then sits on the edge of Betty’s bed until she speaks again.

Her voice is soft and slightly nervous. “You can look now.”

Jughead does, turning slowly, and gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. She’s dressed in denim shorts and a gauzy white tank top, her face freshly washed and her hair in the same regular ponytail that she seems to live in. She’s pretty, he notices, and quite so at that.

“Ready?” he asks, standing up awkwardly. “I’d stop at my room to change, but I’m pretty sure that’s where Veronica and Archie are, and I’d really rather not walk in on that.”

Betty groans at his words. “Oh god, _Archie._ What are we going to tell _them?”_

“That’s a problem for future Jughead and Betty,” he decides, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “First order of business is getting un-married.”

“Right,” Betty says, looking and sounding slightly distracted. Jughead follows her gaze and realizes she’s staring at his face - rather, just below his face.

He leans to the side so that he can glance in the mirror and notices that there’s a hickey, angry and purple, just below his pulse point on the right side of his neck. He attempts to pull the collar of his shirt up so that it’s covered, but it’s useless: the hickey is there, on righteous display for all of the city to see. He lets out a small sigh of defeat, then gives a shrug and reaches for the hotel room door.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts, making him pause in his tracks.

Jughead turns and smirks at her. “It’s okay, Nosferatu, this kind of thing happens when you accidentally marry a friend of a friend in Las Vegas.”

Betty scowls at him, pushes at his arm, and then shoves past him into the hallway. “I’m glad you think this is so funny.”

Jughead shrugs and follows her out of the room. “I mean, there’s no tiger in the bathroom, so it could be worse. Besides, this is all going away in a few hours, right? No harm, no foul.”

.

.

.

.

. 

 

 _Or not,_ Jughead thinks, staring at the closed door of the county clerk’s office. 

“I can’t believe it’s _closed,”_ Betty says with a not insignificant degree of desperation in her voice. “How did you not check into that before we came all the way over here?”

“Me?” Jughead says, pointing at himself. “I looked up the address, booked the Lyft, _and_ paid for it, and now my phone is dead, so I think the real question is why didn’t _you_ check into the hours?” He stares down the fairly empty Sunday-morning street, squints at that _fucking sunlight,_ and then lifts his hand to the bridge of his nose. Beside him, Betty looks like she might burst into tears. “Okay, look,” he sighs, easing his voice into a gentler tone. “There’s a Walgreens and a Starbucks right over there. Let’s go get a coffee - I know I need one, I don’t know about you - and some Advil, then we’ll figure it out, alright?”

She nods, wordless and slight, and clutches her hand tightly around the cross-body strap of her purse.

He leads the way across the street, his wedding ring _(oh god)_ still burning a hole in his left pocket. They reach the Walgreens first; Jughead makes a beeline for the pain relief and headache aisle, where he grabs a box of extra-strength Advil. He’s lost Betty somewhere along the way, but it’s not like she’ll go missing in a goddamned Walgreens, so he goes to find a cheap bottle of water from the refrigerated section.

There, clutching a small white-and-blue box and a bottle of off-brand Gatorade, is Betty. Jughead quirks the corner of his mouth at her, curious about what she’s buying and at the same time fully aware that it’s not likely to be any of his business. “Where’d you run off to?” he asks, reaching for the bottle in her hands. “I can get your vitamin water.”

Her cheeks are bright red with embarrassment, but Betty shows him the box anyway. Plan B: the morning-after pill. _Oh, fuck._

“I couldn’t find a condom in the trash,” Betty says, unable to make eye contact with him. “It’s possible we used one and flushed it, but…”

Jughead swallows, a strange lump developing in his stomach, and runs a nervous hand through his hair again. “Yeah, uh, better safe than sorry and all that. Well, I can definitely pay for half of that. Or all of it. Whichever you want.” 

He feels like an asshole; the thought of birth control never even crossed his mind. He was so preoccupied with the whole getting-married-in-Vegas thing that he didn’t even realize the more basic issue of potential pregnancy. And of course not, he realizes, he gets that luxury.

 _Asshole,_ he says to himself again.

“Half is fine,” Betty says, her blush fading but still clear. He wants to wipe it away; she has nothing to be embarrassed about. Or at least, just as much as he does.

He takes it from her hand and goes to the till, putting the Plan B, Advil, and vitamin water on his credit card. Betty gives him a few crumpled bills afterward, then they go outside and share the water as they each down 500 milligrams of ibuprofen. Betty follows that with the Plan B, then holds the cool bottle to her cheek, apparently overheating already.

Jughead knows the feeling.

Afterward, they walk next door to Starbucks. Betty waits outside, as she’s apparently feeling slightly nauseous - again, Jughead knows the feeling - and he goes in to buy two americanos.

Then, they walk onto a side street and sit down on the curb, each holding a coffee in a pretentiously-named size with a mawkish overly-summery pattern. Jughead scowls at the corporate cup but drinks it anyway as Betty pulls out her phone.

“I’ve been googling,” she says. “While you were in Starbucks. It looks like we have grounds for an annulment under the Nevada Code on Domestic Relations, subsection 125: dissolution of marriage, policy 330, which says ‘when either of the parties to a marriage for want of understanding shall be incapable of assenting thereto, the marriage shall be void’ … it needs to get approved by a judge, but that _has_ to count, right? Being too drunk?” 

Jughead takes a long sip of his coffee, letting the magic liquid flow into his veins and cleanse his spirit of its demons. “I don’t know,” he says, the words coming out in an unintentionally long drawl. “I don’t do a lot of _assenting thereto_ so I’m not an expert in capability in that area.” 

Betty gives him a look but ignores most of what he’s said, continuing on in a newly authoritative voice. “We can’t file here until tomorrow, but our flights are leaving tonight, so we’ll have to take care of it in New York. I’ll get some of the relevant paperwork together tomorrow and send you an email, does that work? I think I have yours from some of the group wedding email chains.”

“God, I almost forgot about those,” Jughead groans, dropping his head between his arms for a brief moment. “Riveting, they are.”

To his surprise, Betty lets out a quiet giggle beside him. “I know that you’re just _that_ interested in the centrepieces for the tables. You can’t get that by me.”

“You’re right,” he confirms, his mouth sliding into a half-grin despite his tiredness, lingering hangover, and this whole ridiculous situation. “I’ve waited my whole life to offer my opinion on a choice between upside-down wine glasses with candles on top and large bouquets of expensive flowers.”

“I voted for the flowers.”

Jughead glances over at her. Her eyes are still sparkling, same as they were last night at the club, and he’s hit with the sudden memory of kissing her near the taxi stand. _Still so damn pretty,_ he thinks. Aloud, he comments, “Me too. Seemed more authentically Veronica, especially since she can get the orchids flown in from out of state and use that to upstage her society friends.”

Betty’s smile widens; suddenly, she looks away, digging her sandal into the dusty gravel beside the curb. “They’re your society friends too,” she reminds him.

Jughead laughs out loud at that, making her turn to him in surprise, but he can’t help it. _"No,”_ he says, shaking his head vehemently. “I do not run in those circles with Ronnie.”

“No?” She sounds confused, but he’s not really in the mood to enlighten her today. Too much has already happened, and the particulars of how he became friends with Veronica are a whole other thing altogether. “How do you know her, then?”

“That,” he says, reaching over to flick a stray mosquito off of her shoulder, “is a story for another time. With maybe even more alcohol than last night.”

Betty winces, ostensibly at the mere concept of that, then tilts her head, her cheek accidentally brushing against his fingertips. _So soft,_ he thinks, pulling his hand away. “You won’t even tell your wife?”

A slow, cheeky smile spreads across her face, and Jughead is overcome with the sudden urge to kiss it away.

 

* * *

 

It’s half past eleven by the time they get back to the hotel, which means they’re late for post-bachelor/bachelorette wedding party brunch, which was scheduled for 10:45 sharp. Betty knows Archie won’t care, but his wife-to-be will be at least a little disappointed by their tardiness.

“We shouldn’t arrive at the same time,” she tells Jughead as their ride pulls up in front of the hotel, rubbing tiredly at one of her cheeks. “Soon enough it’ll be like this never happened so let's just… pretend like that’s the case.”

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll head down as soon as I change.”

In the elevator, she eyes the hickey she gave him, chewing the inside of her bottom lip. “Do you want some… concealer?”

His eyebrows lift, but he doesn’t say no right away. The way he’s looking at her gives her the sense that her outward appearance reflects how she feels on the inside: thoroughly worn-out and fairly dehydrated. “You think that’ll help?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “I’m paler than you, so it might just make it more noticeable, and it’s fresh, so putting something on it will hurt. It’s probably best just to leave it alone.”

Jughead nods.

The doors open at their floor and they exit the elevator. “It just… it kind of kills the pretend-nothing-happened plan.”

He slows to a stop, his head tilting to one side slightly as he examines her face. “There’s no harm in admitting that we fooled around a little,” he says. “We can leave out the lifelong commitment part.”

The girl that Alice Cooper raised, who still lives somewhere inside Betty and surfaces from time to time, wants to protest, _I’m not that kind of girl._ The woman Betty’s grown into no longer believes hook-ups determine character, but she still sort of feels like crying. “I don’t know,” she murmurs.

“Betty.” Jughead puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay.”

She takes a steadying breath and manages to nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. We’ll tell them we got drunk and got a little crazy and… had fun.”

Jughead’s lips twitch into something close to a smirk. “You had fun?” he asks.

Betty rolls her eyes and whacks the back of her hand against his chest halfheartedly. “Honestly, I can hardly remember anything after we left the club, but… ” She looks down at the patterned carpet. “My thighs are pretty sore this morning.” 

When she peeks back up through her lashes, she sees that his smirk has morphed into a full-fledged grin, and she breathes a very quiet laugh. “Go get changed,” she orders him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jughead says, grin still firmly in place. “What is it that they say?” he asks as he backs down the hall. “Happy wife, happy life?”

. 

.

.

.

.

 

When Betty walks into the dining room a few minutes later, having changed into a floral dress with fluttery sleeves and pinned her hair into a neat bun, Veronica’s eyes zero in on her right away. 

“Well, _well,”_ Veronica says, standing from where she’s seated next to Jughead, who is now in a new button-down shirt and jeans, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. She air-kisses each of Betty’s cheeks. “Archie and I _thought_ Jug might’ve had some fun last night when he never came back to their room, but we didn’t think you were the one he was having fun with. I should’ve known, though,” she says, pursing her lips thoughtfully, “when you were both late. Jughead’s hopeless, but you’re usually so punctual.”

“Where were you two this morning?” Archie asks, pulling out the chair next to his so that she can sit down. “Or do I not want to know?”

“Arch,” she tsks, sinking into the chair gratefully. “We just… went for a walk. Did some sightseeing, got some sun.” 

Veronica’s still staring at her, as are at least two of the other five bridesmaids. “You are a _terrible_ liar,” she says, her voice gentle, like she pities Betty for this fact. She rounds on her best friend. “Jughead, where were you?”

He shrugs. “We went for a walk, like Betty said.”

Veronica frowns. “What are you two hiding?”

“Ronnie,” Archie begins, “if they don’t want to - ” 

“We were at the county clerk,” Betty cuts in tiredly. She’s far too hungover to keep this up until Veronica finally drags it out of one of them. “To get an annulment." 

The table goes completely silent.

Reggie is the first one to speak, slowly crowing, _“Ho-_ ly shit.” He grins, and holds up his mug of coffee to toast her. “Baby Cooper!” he cheers.

Archie frowns, like he’s trying to put pieces of a puzzle together. “An… annulment? Like, for a… ”

Veronica grabs Jughead’s arm. “Betty, may I see you in the hall, please?” she says. She gives her chin a little jerk in Archie’s direction to indicate that he should come too, and then pulls Jughead out of his chair. He grabs onto his cup of coffee at the last moment, shooting Betty an apologetic look.

Betty goes to get up, but she’s stopped by Archie’s hand on her shoulder.

“You _married_ him?” he asks quietly, his eyes wide.

She tilts her head toward Veronica and Jughead, who are nearly out of the dining room, and sighs, “C’mon, I’d rather only tell the story once.”

By the time they catch up to his fiancée and her husband (her stomach flips at the thought), Veronica is saying, “ - somehow miss the memo that _I_ am getting married this month?" 

“Ronnie, for the love of god,” Jughead says, though the exasperation in his voice is measured, “No one was trying to steal your thunder or anything. It was a drunken, impulsive decision.” 

“And we’re getting an annulment,” Betty reminds them. “I’m going to file paperwork tomorrow.”

“How?” Veronica demands, still looking at Jughead. “How does an over-thinker like you do something like this?”

Archie nods, and points at Betty as though she’s not even there. “Betty doesn’t _make_ impulsive decisions.”

“You two were the ones encouraging all the alcohol consumption,” she points out.

Veronica looks at her with wide eyes. “Oh, so this is _our_ fault?”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Betty says, lifting both hands to rub at her temples; her headache is threatening to return. “It’s just something that happened.” 

“Ronnie, it’s not that big of a deal,” Jughead adds.

“Of course it is,” she says. “Of _course_ it is.” Both her eyes and her voice have gone soft. “You’re _you.”_

“Veronica,” Betty murmurs, feeling contrite, “I wasn’t trying to imply that you - ”

“I know,” Veronica interrupts her, waving a hand through the air. “I know, I didn’t mean to jump down your throat, I just - ” She swallows audibly and looks back over at Jughead. He returns her gaze, and they seem to engage in some kind of silent communication. 

Betty gives Archie a gentle nudge and says, “Come on, let’s go back in,” sensing that Jughead and Veronica could use a moment.

He walks with her back toward the dining room, but steers her away from the doors and toward the hotel lobby, stopping by a large plant.

“Are you okay?” he asks her. “You look a little green.”

“I feel gross,” she admits. “And I feel… confused.”

“Aw, Betts,” he says softly, gathering her into a hug. She presses her face into his shoulder and closes her eyes as he rubs her back. 

“I got _married,_ Archie,” she whispers after a long moment. “Drunk. In Vegas. To a guy I _barely_ know, I - ow,” she says, starting when he pats her shoulder blade and it hurts. She pulls away from him, reaches up to rub it, and finds that her skin feels very tender. “What… ” 

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asks.

Frowning, she gives her head a little shake. She reaches behind herself, twisting awkwardly in order to unzip her dress slightly, and then turns her back to him, folding the fabric away from her skin so that he can take a look.

Archie makes a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a laugh. “Holy _crap,_ Betty,” he says.

“What?” she asks. There’s some brief rustling, and then the click of a phone’s camera. She turns around again, and Archie holds out his phone so that she can see the picture.

There’s a hickey on her shoulder blade, a large one that looks particularly angry, full of splotches of red and purple. She’s had _one_ hickey in her life, to date, from a boy in high school, and she’s never had a hickey like _that._

“You guys did a _number_ on each other,” Archie says. His expression is very strange, caught between a grin and a wince, like he’s simultaneously amused by her predicament and horrified at having to imagine her in a sexual context.

“I don’t even _remember_ that, Arch,” she confesses quietly. “What am I _doing?_ I - ”

“Hey.” His expression turns sober. “Don’t freak out. You just really… embraced the whole Vegas thing.” He pauses, then adds, “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s a totally _bad_ thing. Not the not-remembering part,” he amends when she opens her mouth to protest, “but the part where you just _did_ something you wanted to do, in the moment. You let loose, and no offense, Betts, but I think maybe you kind of needed to.”

Her lower lip juts out slightly. “How am I not supposed to take offense to that?”

Archie smiles. “I just mean… you’ve been there for me after every single mess I’ve ever made in my life, and I wouldn’t even want to count how many that totals. You’re a great friend and you’re great at your job and you’re a great daughter and a great aunt and a great volunteer at the animal shelter and a great yoga teacher and a great member of our wedding party. You put everything else before you. I think it’s kind of nice that you didn’t, this time. You didn’t think about the fact that it was Veronica’s night - ”

“Your night, too,” Betty adds. 

He lifts an eyebrow and repeats jokingly, _“Veronica’s_ night. You did something for yourself, even if it might feel like a mistake this morning. I mean - those hickeys, Betty. On both ends. It’s sort of hard to think that you weren’t enjo - ” Her wrinkled nose puts a stop to his sentence, and he says, “Anyway. I’m proud of Last-Night Betty, even if you’re mad at her.”

“Thank you, Arch,” she says softly. “I think.”

He twirls a finger through the air to indicate that she should spin around, and she does; when her back is too him once again, he zips up the top of her dress. “Let’s go get you greasy food,” he says decisively.

At this point, there’s not much else that she can do, so she says, “Okay,” and follows him back to the dining room. 

.

.

.

.

.

 

Jughead and Veronica are already seated; Jughead’s shovelling food from a full plate into his mouth, and Veronica’s holding the stem of a champagne glass that contains a mimosa.

“Archiekins,” Veronica says, patting the seat of the chair next to her own. She arches an eyebrow at Betty, a smile playing over her lips as she says, “Sit next to your husband, Mrs. Jones.”

“I took her name,” Jughead says through a mouthful as Betty takes her seat.

She half-frowns. “What?” 

He nods. “Mr. Jughead Cooper, at your service.” He points his chin toward the cup in front of her. “Got the waitress to pour you some coffee.”

Her frown gives way to a smile she can’t help; this whole situation is just so completely ridiculous, so endlessly surprising. “Thanks,” she says, and lifts the cup to her lips.

 

 

 

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please validate us!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are overwhelmed by the love! Thank you all so much and please continue to comment; it feeds our evil little souls.

It’s remarkable to Jughead that even on this, a day where she literally woke up and discovered she’d married a near-stranger, Betty has still managed to cycle through three completely separate outfits. First there were the denim shorts that she’d worn on their unsuccessful excursion to get an annulment, then the dress for brunch, and now, there’s what seems to be an unofficial airport uniform for every white girl he knows: leggings, slip-on shoes, and a long, drapey top. Betty’s is light blue and sleeveless and sets off the tan she’d gotten over their weekend here. With that, combined with her hair down in messy waves, and Jughead can’t help but think that she looks like a beach goddess.

He still can’t believe they’re married. Hell, he can’t believe that a girl like her even slept with him.

Worse: he can’t believe that a girl like her slept with him and he _doesn’t remember._

Betty is also clutching some kind of an iced coffee beverage - the second trip to Starbucks of the day, apparently - and standing anxiously by their departure gate, fingertips tapping on the screen of her phone. She has a nervous grimace on her face, and he supposes he knows what that’s probably about, so he closes his laptop and decides that he’ll go over and try to set her at ease a little.

Unfortunately, Reggie beats him to her side.

Jughead sees him coming a few moments before Betty turns around. He notices Reggie blatantly staring at Betty’s ass (and yeah, _okay,_ he’s noticed it too, especially in her leggings - but this asshole doesn’t have to be so goddamn obvious and gross about it) and has half a mind to go up to him and yell before two things happen: one, some kind of common sense prevails (what is he supposed to say, _quit staring at my wife?_ ), and two, Reggie makes his presence known with a tap on Betty’s shoulder.

With that plan abandoned, Jughead begins to eavesdrop.

“Sorry to hear you’re all locked down, baby Cooper,” Reggie’s telling her, clearly trying to turn on some kind of gross charm. “But once that’s over ... for future reference, if you ever need to let, uh, anything in particular loose, I’m always more than happy to be of assistance. I promise I’d take better care of you than that skinny weirdo. Probably doesn’t even know where all your best parts are.”

 _What a fucking creep,_ Jughead thinks, making a face.

“Thanks for the offer, Reggie, but I’m a married woman,” Betty says passively, not bothering even to look up at him and instead preoccupying herself with finding her driver’s license. “And not that it’s any of your concern, but Jughead found his way around me pretty quickly, and quite _well.”_ She finds her ID and glances up at Reggie’s face, jaw twitching curiously. “Including all of my _best parts.”_ She quirks her head at him slightly as if to say _fuck you,_ then grabs hold of her suitcase and walks away from Reggie.

It takes Jughead a moment to realize that she’s walking _toward_ him, but when he does, he offers a half-smile. “Thought you didn’t remember anything apart from your thighs being sore,” he says by way of greeting, then giving a friendly wink when she stares at him with mild embarrassment in her eyes.

“Yeah, well.” Betty’s ears redden and she sits down beside him. “Reggie’s a dick, so. Plus, you have great hands and I _do_ remember you being good with your tongue, so it’s probably not a complete lie.”

He grins at that. “Good with my tongue, huh?”

Betty pulls a magazine out of her bag and starts flipping through it. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

He nods wordlessly but is unable to stop smiling anyway. He probably looks like a damn fool, sitting here beside a girl and grinning at nothing. Jughead shakes his own head and focuses on sliding his laptop into his messenger bag. Veronica was right; this isn’t him, this guy, this role he’s playing. He’s not sure what came over him, either; her words after brunch had been unspecific but he gets it anyway, knows what she means, what she didn’t say.

As the son of an alcoholic, he’s never really drank that much. He’s not an advocate for temperance, or anything - his father has a disease, _his_ father had a disease, and there’s a not insignificant chance that Jughead could fall down that same path, so he has always taken great care to tread carefully. He definitely doesn’t get so drunk that he doesn’t remember things, or that he sleeps with a casual sort-of friend, or that he gets fucking married to that same girl. Jughead is personally shocked that the drunk version of him even wanted to get married - privately, he’s pretty convinced the whole institution is some kind of conspiracy - and that makes him think that he probably has some further self-reflection to do.

Later, though, he thinks. The boarding call is made for their flight back to New York, so Jughead gets his own driver’s license out and joins Betty in the lineup.

He loses her on the gangway somewhere but sees her again in the aisle of the plane, trying to wedge her carry-on suitcase into the overhead bin and not finding much success. She stands on her tiptoes, grits her teeth, and tries to push it past some invisible barrier, but it doesn’t work.

“Having problems, dear?” Jughead asks casually, noticing that she’s stalled in his assigned row of seats anyway.

“It’s stuck on something,” Betty tells him, giving up briefly and letting her suitcase balance precariously above her.

It’s a recipe for disaster. Plus, now that he’s a bit closer - and taller than her, he notes, so it’s unlikely that she can diagnose the problem - he sees that there’s one of the long plastic margarita glasses stuck at back of the compartment, the rim of which is preventing Betty’s bag from sliding easily in. Jughead reaches up and moves it to the side, then pushes her bag in and shoves his duffel beside it.

“Thanks,” Betty tells him, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Height advantage.”

Jughead nods, then glances at the row she’s blocking. “Sorry, this is me.”

“Oh,” Betty says with surprise, gathering her purse and slipping into the window seat of the same row. “This is me too.”

He tilts his head and gives her a curious smile, then shrugs and sits down in the aisle seat beside her. “The universe is being funny,” he comments.

Betty buckles her seat belt in. “How so?”

“Here’s a five-hour flight; you’ll be hungover and tired, why _not_ spend it sitting beside a girl who probably never wants to see you again?” he quips, grabbing the in-flight magazine. He flips to a profile of Austin, Texas (America’s top festival destination!) and starts reading about South by Southwest.

Betty responds to him softly, but it’s the trembling sad tone in her voice that makes him look over at her. “I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes tempered with concern. “I _never_ meant to make you feel that way, that I - like I don’t want to see you. I’m really sorry if I did, this whole thing is just so crazy and unlike me, and I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Betty, no, you didn’t,” Jughead assures her, putting a hand on her forearm. “I assumed - I just know if _I_ woke up married to me, I’d probably run screaming.”

She draws her lower lip into her mouth thoughtfully, then releases it from between her teeth in a way that he’s sure is not meant to be enticing (but somehow _is,_ god). “Not screaming,” she says softly.

He looks at her, trying to read her complex expression. He gives up after a minute, but the silence that hangs between them is heavy with an awkward sort of tension, so he decides to make yet another bad joke to break it. “Not screaming,” he agrees. “From what I remember, it was more breathy moans.”

He half-expects her to slap him, but instead Betty blushes and turns away, looking down at her hands folded in her lap, the corners of her lips upturned. “I told you not to let it go to your head,” she accuses, but when she looks back at him she’s still smiling.

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They arrive back in New York in the wee hours of the morning and separate into smaller groups at JFK. Betty, it turns out, lives close to him in Williamsburg, so they share a Lyft home. The ride is long but silent, him spending all of his energy trying to stay awake, and when he does finally arrive back at his apartment, he barely takes off his shoes before falling into bed, exhausted.

That need for sleep, however, has not seemed to reach Veronica, because she wakes him up with a phone call six hours later.

“I have a cake emergency. Be ready in twenty, I’m coming to pick you up.”

Jughead rubs his eyes, groaning. “Ronnie, there is no such thing as a cake emergency,” he tells her. “Especially not at-” he pauses, bringing the phone back from his ear to look at the time - “god, _nine o’clock.”_

“There is if I say there is,” Veronica declares. “You owe me for that little upstaging trick you and Betty pulled in Vegas.”

 _Jesus Christ._ “For the last time, Ron, I was _not_ trying to upstage-”

“I know,” she interrupts, giggling. “I _know._ Logically, anyway. Which we need to talk about, by the way. So get dressed.”

She hangs up with a decisive _click,_ and Jughead is left staring at his ceiling, wondering when his life became largely comprised of women telling him to put his clothes on. He dwells on it for another two seconds before swinging his legs out of bed and dragging himself into the shower, knowing that for Veronica, twenty minutes really means fifteen, as long as Smithers was driving.

He’s been friends with Veronica since they were both just shy of fourteen and their fathers were arrested together as part of an organized crime charge: his father, the street captain of sorts, and hers, the man in the ivory tower with the purse strings. They’d bonded as the only two kids their age in the group of defendants’ children, and when both of their fathers had gone to jail (albeit hers for a much shorter time than his, classism being alive and well), Veronica had been the only person he could talk to that would understand.

Jughead _knows_ that they’re a bit of a mismatched pair, but loyalty is one of the only things that truly matters to him, and Veronica has that in spades.

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An hour later, they’re at a bakery in midtown, each with a small piece of lemon cake and chocolate cherry cake in front of them. The dilemma, allegedly, is that apparently Archie’s aunt is allergic to lemon, throwing Veronica’s initial (and hard-fought) decision into question. Chocolate cherry had been the runner-up, so they’re back once more to make a final call that seems to Jughead to really be about how much Veronica cares about the dietary restrictions of one individual.

“I still like the lemon better,” he tells her, “but all cake is good.”

“You’re not any help whatsoever,” Veronica informs him, making a face at the attendant. “Can you give us another minute?”

“Sure, Miss Lodge,” she’s told, and then they’re alone again.

Once he’s gone, Veronica turns to Jughead. “Can we talk?”

“We’re talking right now,” Jughead points out, spearing Veronica’s half-eaten piece of lemon cake.

She gives him a look that plainly says _you know what I fucking mean,_ and crosses her legs primly. “I’ll just say it, Jug: I’m worried about you.”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to be.”

“I _am,_ though,” she insists. “Look, I really like Betty. She’s an angel in pastel cashmere. She’s pretty and smart and probably way too good for you-”

“Thanks,” Jughead cuts in wryly.

“Love you,” Veronica teases, winking at him. “Kidding about that. But you know what I mean - she’s _awesome,_ but you’ve been through a fucking lot, Jug. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Jughead swallows the piece of cake that he’s just eaten and turns to Veronica with what he hopes is a kind expression. “I appreciate the concern, Ronnie, I do. But there’s nothing to get hurt over. This’ll all be over in a matter of days, probably, and then it’s all back to normal. We’re not - it was a one-time thing.”

Veronica sighs. “But you don’t _do_ one-time things. You even turned down Cheryl when she was on her post-Josie penis-rampage.”

“Cheryl isn’t my type,” he says automatically, repeating to her what he’d said then, which is true enough. Cheryl is _not_ his type - she’s objectively attractive, sure, but she’s also rude and spent about two hours calling him _the hobo of the Lower East Side,_ so it had been an easy decline.

“My point stands.”

Jughead pats Veronica’s hand. “I understand where you’re coming from, Ronnie. And I assure you, there’s nothing to worry about.” He points at the empty plates in front of her. “Stick with the lemon.”

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Jughead is still thinking about Veronica’s words - _you don’t do one-time things_ \- when he gets home later. He’s ready for an afternoon nap, but he wants to get some work done on his spec novel, so he sets a strong pot of coffee to brew and flops himself down on the couch with his laptop.

Just as he’s pulling up his word document, his phone buzzes. It’s not from a number he recognizes, but when he opens the message he sees that it’s from Betty. _**Hi, it’s Betty. Can you please call me when you have a free minute? Thank you.**_

He raises an eyebrow, amused by her formality - _you tore the skin on my shoulders with your nails_ comes to mind as an automatic possible response - then slides his thumb over her name to call her.

 

* * *

 

Betty’s in bed when her phone rings - she’s been in bed for most of the day, having forced herself up around ten for breakfast, a shower, and a brief session of annulment-related research before retreating back into her cocoon of blankets with her laptop. She’d taken the day off from work for post-Vegas recovery, not realizing at the time how badly she’d need it.

She’d called Kevin and, as per his request, chronicled every detail of the weekend and her marriage (her _marriage_ ) for him. He’d seemed to think she was lying when she said she couldn’t remember much about the sex, and had volleyed a myriad of questions at her while he Facebook-stalked Jughead, but his voice had turned soft and serious when Betty, surprising them both, had burst into tears.

“This is good-girl guilt, baby B,” he’d told her gently. “Alice Cooper guilt. You made a dumb mistake, that’s all. In a couple days, when you’re not so tired and hungover, this will be a funny story.”

“I guess,” she’d sighed, as her tears dried up fairly quickly - she wasn’t sure if it was due to dehydration or if she hadn’t needed to cry that badly after all. “I don’t know, Kev; I’m just such a mess. I freaked out, and now I feel like I’m freaking out about my freak-out. I think I sort of made him feel like I was horrified to be married to him or something.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Kevin said. “Have you _seen_ this picture of him in a tank?”

“I’ve seen him _naked_ , Kevin,” she reminded him, and hung up shortly after he started demanding descriptions of specific parts of Jughead’s anatomy.

She’d settled back against her pillows, and had just started a new episode of _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ , trying to focus on the plot and not let her mind drift to Jughead’s body, when something else occurred to her. She paused her episode, draped both her forearms over her face as she groaned, and then put an end to her session of self-pity by texting Archie to ask for Jughead’s number.

( ** _I won’t tell your husband you don’t know his digits,_** he wrote when he sent it to her.)

Now, when Jughead calls, his name appears on the screen since she’s saved his number in her contacts. She greets him with a soft, “Hi,” and adds, “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”

“Wouldn’t want to keep my wife waiting,” he says easily. “What’s up; do you need me to sign something?”

“I do. But I also… had a thought.”

“Yeah?”

The ear that her phone is pressed against starts to heat up; she’s glad that he’s not there to see her blush. “We should - we should probably get tested. You know, because we didn’t use a condom.”

There’s a pause, and then Jughead says, “Right.”

“Are you… okay with doing that?”

“Yeah,” he says, responding much more quickly this time. “Yeah, of course.”

“I’m sorry if this is weird,” she blurts out. “I’ve never done this before, I’ve never… I don’t know the chill way to handle this, I guess.”

He laughs, and for some reason the sound reminds her of his breath warm against her ear, making her shiver with want. The memory catches her off-guard, and she just barely manages to focus back on his voice by the time he says, “I’ve never done this either.”

“Really?” she asks, the word coming out on a relieved exhale.

“Really,” he confirms. “Do you want to go together? Tackle our unsafe sexual practices the same way we engaged in them?”

A little smile sneaks onto her lips, and she says, “Yeah. I can call Planned Parenthood and make appointments. I get off early on Thursdays, at three-thirty - would something around four-thirty or five work for you?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Will you put it in our calendar, my darling?”

Betty laughs and gives her eyes a tiny roll. “I’ll text it to you, shnookums.”

“Sounds good, Betts,” he says. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she says simply.

After they hang up, she gets out of bed.

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She’s already in the waiting room when Jughead arrives at the clinic, sitting in a plastic chair and flipping through a magazine without really paying attention to its pages. He checks in at the desk, and then takes the seat next to hers.

“Hey,” he says. “You look nice.”

She blinks, a bit surprised, and looks down at herself - she’s wearing work clothes, a white pencil skirt, a navy blouse, a pair of espadrilles. “Thanks,” she says. “I came straight from the office.”

Jughead nods and drapes an arm along the back of her chair so that he can sit more comfortably without worrying about bumping against the nervous-looking teen on his right. “This is probably not a tactful question to ask one’s wife, but what is it that you do?”

Betty smiles. “I write copy for a bank. You write, too, right? Fiction?”

“Yeah. And some local-interest journalism, to pay the bills. I also contribute to a couple sites.”

“That’s really cool,” she says, and then winces at her word of choice. _Cool?_ “I mean - that’s sort of what I wanted to do, when I was younger, but my parents said it wasn’t practical. They ran our town newspaper; it went under when I was in college.”

Jughead grimaces slightly. “Yeah, it’s rough in the print world these days.”

“I read recently,” Betty says, setting her magazine aside, “that sales of books - novels - actually aren’t doing too badly, though. People like to _hold_ their books; reading on a Kindle or iPad isn’t the same.”

He smiles at her. “You’re just trying to make a struggling artist feel better.”

Betty flutters her eyelashes at him guilelessly. “I just want you to be able to contribute to the 401k, honey.”

Jughead’s smile expands, and Betty presses her lips together as she looks at that smile, feeling suddenly shy. She feels like she should say something more, but she hasn’t made her mind up about what that might be when a nurse calls, “Elizabeth Cooper?”

She lifts her eyebrows at Jughead. “That’s me.”

He drops his hand to her shoulder and gives it a quick squeeze. “See you on the other side.”

She gives him a little nod in return and gets up, heading toward the nurse. She can feel his eyes on her back, and she doesn’t know what to make of it.

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Even though she was called in first, Jughead’s done before she is, and when she returns to the waiting room, she finds him there, perched on the edge of a chair. He stands up when he sees her.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” she says.

“What kind of husband would that make me?” he asks, opening the door for her. “Did you get the same spiel I did - they’ll call within the next two weeks if there’s anything to report, but no news is good news?”

“Yeah.”

“I… ” Jughead lifts a hand and rubs at the back of his neck, his eyes on the sidewalk. “I don’t think there’s much to worry about. I haven’t slept with anyone in… a while.”

Betty glances over him. “Me neither,” she says quietly.

He drops his hand down to his side and looks up again. His eyes search hers for a moment, and then he says, “So. You’ve got some annulment paperwork?”

“I downloaded forms from the county clerk,” she says, nodding. “Technically, it seems like we’re supposed to be able to _prove_ that we were drunk off our asses, but… we were in Vegas, so I’m hoping that fact will kind of speak for itself.” She glances around. “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or something, and you can fill in your sections?”

“Yeah, sure.” Jughead pulls his phone out of his pocket to look at the time. “Honestly, I’m starving - do you want to get dinner?”

Betty considers his question for a moment - dinner sort of seems like a _date_ thing - but then she reminds herself that they’re _married_ and says, “Yeah. I’m hungry, too.”

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They end up at a pub, and order the same burger - his with fries, hers with the house salad. Betty winces at the mere sight of the drink menu.

“God,” she sighs. “I don’t even know if I’ll be able to _hold_ champagne at the wedding during the toasts, just looking at alcohol makes me feel sick.”

“I’m in the same boat,” Jughead says. “That was the worst hangover I’ve ever had.”

“Really? I think I might’ve had _one_ that rivalled it in college.”

He nods slowly, tracing a finger through the condensation on his glass of water. “I’m not a big drinker, usually.”

“No?”

“Issues with alcohol sort of run in my family,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” she says, her eyes widening. “I’m sorry.”

Jughead smiles faintly. “For what?”

“For… Vegas. I think I was the one who kept asking for more shots.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not like you coerced me into anything.” He shrugs. “I was having a good time with you.”

Betty wraps both hands around her own glass of water, enjoying its coolness against her skin. “I was having a good time with you, too, Juggie.”

A fond smile lights up his face slowly. “You were calling me that in Vegas, too.”

“What?” she asks, repeating her own words back to herself. “Oh - Juggie?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry,” she says. “I think maybe it’s just a pattern. You know - Archie, Ronnie, Juggie.”

“Betty,” he points out. “Though you’re the outlier with a Y.”

“I guess I’m special,” she jokes.

“I guess you are.”

Betty watches as he takes a drink and runs his tongue quickly over his bottom lip. She has a flash of memory - that same tongue flicking at one of her nipples, trailing over her abdomen, and her stomach clenches with a sudden burst of want. She ignores it, fixing her most polite smile on her lips. “I’ll stop calling you that,” she says. “Juggie. If you find it juvenile.”

“Nah,” he says, one shoulder lifting and then falling in a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t mind. You can call me whatever you want.”

She takes a deep breath. _Get it together_ , she tells herself.

“Okay, pookie bear,” she manages to say in a light, lilting tone. She reaches for her purse. “Let me show you where to sign.”

Before she pulls out the folder she tucked the forms into neatly, she hands him a pen. His fingers, slightly callused, brush against hers, and Betty orders away the butterflies that start flitting through her belly.

 

 

tbc.


	4. Chapter 4

Somehow, as if fate has chosen specifically him to mock, Jughead is seated with Betty at the rehearsal dinner.

On the surface, this makes sense. They’re both in the wedding party, and they’re the opposite-sex ‘best friends’ that makes regular inclusion with the remainder of the bridesmaids or groomsmen slightly awkward. So they’re here, at a table with Archie’s parents, a friendly ex-couple who Jughead thinks must be the most cordial divorced spouses in the history of the institution of marriage, and his aunt and uncle from Chicago, who are also friendly but tremendously dull.

On the upside, none of these people know that he and Betty got accidentally married in Vegas, so he’s temporarily relieved of the teasing that has occurred all evening from Reggie, Moose, and the other guys.

The primary issue seems to be that he is currently struggling not to stare at Betty.

She’d come dressed in a tight blue dress that is fitted all the way from her collarbone to its hem in the middle of her thighs. Her feet are strapped into nude heels that make her already-long legs look even moreso, her toes painted a cheerful pink colour that’s just a few shades brighter than her lipstick. He’s been getting bits and pieces of their wedding night back - brief flashes - and upon seeing her had been hit with a vague recollection of those legs wrapped around his shoulders, her breathy voice chanting his name.

It has _not_ helped his real problem, which is that he’s now very clearly developing somewhat of a _thing_ for his wife.

“Nice dress,” Jughead tells her as she sits down, smiling politely at the assembled parents.

“Thanks,” Betty replies brightly. She turns to the side, raising her lips closer to his ear, and quietly informs him, “I had to switch from the one I was planning to wear, because _someone_ left an extremely obvious and somewhat painful hickey on my shoulder blade and it’s still there a week later. So, y’know, thanks.”

Jughead raises an eyebrow at her. “I’m wearing _concealer,_ babe.”

She glares at him for a moment and then stifles a giggle, squeezing his forearm. “So, Fred, are you all set for your speech?” she asks, leaning across the table conversationally.

Archie’s father speaks to Betty with the kind of familiarity that only decades of friendship with one’s child can bring. Jughead tries to listen, taking brief note of “sort of” and “still nervous”, but his eyes drift down beside him to Betty’s chair, where her already-short dress has ridden up, revealing even more of her incredible legs.

 _Fucking hell,_ he thinks.

There’s both champagne and table wine freely available, but Jughead is not drinking, his body still somewhat repulsed by the thought. He knows he’ll need to drink a little tomorrow at the wedding, so he’s decided to save himself for that, as it were. Betty is also not drinking, and he makes a joke that tonight they can be _actual_ sober buddies.

“That worked so well the first time,” she jokes, a twinkle of mirth in her eye.

“If at first you don’t succeed…” Jughead trails off, shrugging. He glances up at the sound of a clinking glass and realizes that Fred has risen to make a toast to Archie and Veronica.

It’s sweet, the speech; it’s all about Archie as a precocious young ginger baby and the early evidence of his love of girls, starting with a babysitter that he’d apparently had a giant crush on at six years old and ending with him meeting Veronica, who had apparently been something of a _coup de force_ when introduced into the heavily masculine, bachelor Andrews home. Within months of dating Archie, she’d had half the house redecorated and all of the bathrooms completely transformed, and they didn’t even live there; this was offered as evidence of her ability to bend not only Archie but any of the Andrews men to her will, which - well, Jughead doesn’t doubt that for a second.

The speech ends with some generic platitudes about love and happiness, then a more sentimental and personal note about being grateful for a new daughter in the family. Jughead finds the whole thing quite endearing, especially because Fred seems like a genuine, blue-collar kind of guy, and he understands better than anyone that the Lodges can be a bit intimidating at the best of times.

“That was great, Mr. Andrews,” Jughead tells him. “Beats Hiram’s out of the water.”

Fred smiles at him. “Thanks, Jughead. I appreciate that. But it’s not a competition.”

“If it was, you’d have won,” Jughead reaffirms, momentarily checking himself. He knows he should hide his distaste for Veronica’s father a bit better; after all, the Lodge money has helped him out when he’s been in dire straits, but part of him is still that thirteen-year-old who blames the charismatic businessman for getting his father involved in dirty business.

(Logically, Jughead knows that his father is equally to blame for their crimes; but still, he can’t help but to note the power imbalance, and the still-true fact that FP Jones is in jail while Hiram Lodge is sipping Dom Perignon at a beautiful hotel uptown.)

“I liked your speech too, Mr. Andrews,” Betty supplies, leaning toward Fred slightly. Beneath the table, her hand falls on Jughead’s, a movement which he thinks must be inadvertent until he feels her fingers squeeze his in gratitude.

Apparently, he’s not the only one with a slight distaste for Hiram Lodge.

Jughead squeezes back, then leans in closer to her and says, “I’m going to get another Coke. Can I get you anything?”

Betty looks over at him, her dark, sooty lashes flashing quickly. “I’ll come with you, actually,” she replies, offering a short smile to the rest of the table. “Please excuse us.”

He lets his hand fall naturally to her lower back as they weave through the tables, and then follows her to an alcove beside the bar. She ducks her head and looks over her shoulder, which makes Jughead chuckle a little. “If you wanted to play ninja tonight, Betts, you shouldn’t have worn that dress.”

Betty give him a look. “Funny. No, I just wanted to tell you - I was emailing with the commissioner’s office in Nevada, and it seems like this annulment might be a little more complicated than we thought.”

Jughead’s brow furrows. “Oh?”

She grimaces in response. “Yeah. I think we can still - I dunno. I didn’t understand it all. Burden of proof, other issues - so anyway, I made an appointment with a lawyer. You don’t have to come,” she adds quickly, “but I thought I’d, y’know, keep you in the loop.”

He nods at her. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll come with you.”

Betty tilts her head.

“To the lawyer,” Jughead clarifies. “I’ll come with you to the lawyer. Just let me know when and where, and I’ll be there. Two to tango, and all that.”

“Oh.” Betty exhales, and it sounds suspiciously like there’s some relief mixed into her breath. “Thank you.”

“You’re the one doing all the legwork,” he shrugs. Raising the corner of his mouth in a half-grin, he can’t help but add, “You’re also the one with the legs, though, so-”

“Juggie!” Betty exclaims, pushing gently at his arm. Her cheeks are flushed, but there’s an unmistakably delighted glint in her eyes.

Jughead smiles at her and taps his fingers on her shoulder in a brief, syncopated pattern. “It’s a really nice dress, Betty,” he tells her seriously, feeling a weird warmth in his chest at the sweet, somewhat shy smile that spreads across her face. “Let me get you an iced tea.”

Her lips part soundlessly. “Okay.”

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There’s no dancing at the rehearsal dinner, but Betty does hold onto his arm while talking to most of Veronica’s relatives, all of whom he’s met at some point or another and who seem to regard him as one of Hermione’s charity cases rather than as the unintended side victim of Hiram’s schemes. Her being beside him seems to make Hermione’s father, an older Brazilian man with an alarming amount of family wealth, actually respect Jughead for a change. He sort of gets it; Betty is a patrician beauty, the kind of girl that carries an air of elegance and innocence even when she’s not trying. If only Veronica’s grandfather knew that Betty could also level him with a single look, then he’d be properly reverent.

“I think Veronica’s grandfather liked me,” Betty remarks as they walk away, slowly making their way back to the table.

“That makes one of us.” Jughead makes a face. “He’s never liked me being friends with Veronica. I think when she got engaged to Archie, there was a collective sigh of relief in the family that she wasn’t marrying me, even though it’s not - and it’s _never_ been - romantic between us.”

Betty frowns and grabs onto his arm again, threading her hand through the crook of his elbow. “What’s not to like?” she asks.

“That can’t be a serious question,” Jughead comments, raising both eyebrows at Betty before pulling a chair out for her to sit down on.

She does, obediently, and folds her hands in her lap. “It is,” she insists. “You’re a great guy.”

“Uh, thanks.” Jughead scratches his neck awkwardly, never great at accepting compliments that aren’t tinged with some kind of humour. “They all know my dad, and - well, again, a story for another time, but my family’s quite a bit lower-class than the Lodges, and they know it.” He shrugs. “I think Ronnie’s grandfather thought we were together. That was the most polite he’s been to me for as long as I’ve known her. He must think you’re classing me up a bit. And you are.”

“I am _not,”_ Betty says, making a _tsk_ noise with her tongue. Her frown deepens. “You are _not_ low-class, and - and - fuck all these people if they think you are!”

Her quiet ferocity is both sexy and endearing, and Jughead reaches out to squeeze her hand in thanks. “I appreciate that, Betty, but you don’t need to come to my rescue. I’ve been dealing with these people and their looks for more than ten years.”

“Still.” Betty looks cross. “Nobody insults my husband and gets away with it.”

“Technically, nobody has outwardly insulted me, it’s more of a behavioural thing.”

“Are you going to do that every time I try to be nice to you?” she asks, folding her arms in a way that definitely does _not_ bring Jughead’s attention to her breasts.

He shrugs, averting his eyes briefly before looking back and winking at her. “We both know what happened last time you were _too_ nice to me,” he jokes. “Wouldn’t wanna repeat that.”

Betty draws her lower lip between her teeth. “No,” she says, catching his gaze in hers, all vibrant green intensity. “No, we wouldn’t want that.”

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Jughead doesn’t quite know _what_ is wrong with him.

It’s a happy day, no doubt. His best friend has gotten married to the love of her life, finally, after years of heartbreak and enough family drama to last a lifetime. Jughead is honestly, truly happy for Veronica. Yet somehow, he’s a little sad.

It’s that feeling again, the one he’d gotten in Las Vegas the previous weekend that he’d told Betty about and which had spiralled into quite the oopsie-mistake. It’s a loss, illogically. Veronica is gone now, the last of his family, off to build her own. And he is here, alone, with a pretty girl beside him - Monica, he’s pretty sure she’s called, some girl from Veronica’s work that she’d arranged to be his wedding date, having insisted that _no Jughead, you cannot come alone_ \- and all he can do is dwell on his impending loneliness.

Monica, Jughead knows, was also Veronica’s way of trying to set him up with _anyone,_ likely to at least partially avoid him feeling this way. She’s strangely in tune with his moods - or maybe he’s just not that mysterious, Jughead thinks, that’s possible too - and likely had not wanted him to feel sad at all about her nuptials. Which he doesn’t, not for her, anyway. This is his own problem, one that Veronica doesn’t have to fix for him.

Not that he’s done a great job of fixing it, either. His solution a week ago had been to marry one of the bridesmaids, which - well, yeah, not his best moment, even though Betty is definitely the best girl he’ll even ever kiss. She’s like a goddamned dream, but of course, despite her current marital status, she came with a date, too.

He already forgets the guy’s name, but he’s tall and looks like one of the Kennedys. Jughead has images of them on political stages, giving speeches, waving, kissing babies. He’d vote for Betty for president, for sure. On the upside, he’d probably get to be an interesting footnote: POTUS’s oops-husband, a River Phoenix wannabe from the wrong side of the tracks, set forward as evidence that _yes,_ Miss Cooper knows how to have fun _and_ reduce the deficit, did you know that she got drunk and married a guy in Vegas once?

_“Jughead.”_

His head snaps to the side at the sound of his name, insistent and annoyed. “Sorry, what?” he asks Monica.

“I said, I could use another drink.” Monica quirks one eyebrow at him expectantly.

“Oh.” Jughead nods. “Yeah, okay. Gin and tonic, right?”

“Vodka soda,” Monica corrects. “In a tall. Thank you.”

He rises begrudgingly and begins the process of threading himself through the carefully-set tables, toward the bar. He joins the end of a medium-length line and debates whether or not to get himself a scotch before there’s a tap on his shoulder.

He turns and sees Betty behind him, dressed in the same long, lavender-coloured dress as the rest of the bridesmaids. It has a high back made of some kind of weird, slightly transparent material and cuts quite low in the front (he’s _not_ staring at her breasts, no; they’re not enticingly positioned in the dress and they don’t fit perfectly into his hands and she doesn’t love when he flicks his tongue just so, _definitely not)._ The waist nips in so tightly that Jughead’s pretty sure she would’ve had to be poured into the dress, but it lays like a waterfall out from her hips, loose and gauzy, so that she once again looks like some kind of royalty.

“Hey,” Jughead greets, turning to the side so that Betty can sidle up beside him. “Where’s JFK?”

She looks at him in amusement. “Patrick?”

“Sure.”

“He’s at the table, probably trying to decide whether to request ‘the Macarena’ or ‘the Cupid Shuffle’.”

Jughead snorts. “Veronica will never let either of those be played at her wedding.”

“Oh, I know, but that’s his heart to break,” Betty says, “and I don’t particularly care to be the one to do that. He’s pretty committed to bad group-dance songs. You look nice in your suit, by the way. I meant to tell you earlier, at pictures.”

“Thanks,” he says lightly, pressing his fingertips against her lower back as the line moves. “You look nice, too.” He clears his throat. “More than nice. Beautiful. That dress is really-” his eyes draw south of her face, very briefly, and then flick back up to her eyes. “It’s really something.”

Betty looks at him, green eyes slightly unfocused, but it’s not from alcohol. She takes what seems to be an unsteady breath in, then drops her gaze across his suit-clad form. “Thanks, pookie,” she finally answers.

He grins at Betty, then realizes they’ve reached the front of the line, and - ah, _fuck it._ He turns to the bartender and nods his head in greeting. “Hi. I’ll have one vodka-soda in a tall glass, please, and …” he glances back at Betty, smiles, and adds, “two shots of tequila.”

 

* * *

 

The taste of tequila does not remind Betty of Jughead’s tongue exploring her mouth. It does not remind her of that same tongue, paired with lips and teeth, leaving that hickey on her shoulder while she cried out in pleasure. It certainly doesn’t remind her of his body above hers as they panted against one another’s mouths, his murmurs of sweet nothings against her lips, the way he’d called her _baby_ , the desperate way she dug her nails into his skin. Tequila reminds her of none of that, and she _does not_ stare at his mouth after they’ve downed their shots.

Veronica, she thinks, would put a hit out on both of them if they hooked up in the bathroom. She might’ve been able to laugh off the Vegas marriage, but this is her wedding day. Archie’s wedding day. Betty’s childhood best friend’s wedding day. It’s not the time, or the place, to be eyeing her accidental temporary husband and thinking impure thoughts.

“Hey, gorgeous,” a voice says, pulling her from her thoughts as an arm slides around her waist. “There you are.”

She reminds herself to smile, wide and pretty, as she turns toward Patrick. “Here I am,” she agrees.

“Lost you for a minute there,” he says. “Turns out the Macarena has been outlawed.”

“Aw,” she says, softening her smile into something more sympathetic, and then she clears her throat. “Patrick, um, this is Jughead. Veronica’s best friend. Jughead; Patrick.”

“Great to meet you,” Patrick says, holding out a hand. “Jughead,” he adds, his bafflement clear.

“Old nickname, long story,” Jughead says, shaking Patrick’s hand. With a slight sardonic edge to his voice, he asks, “So, how’d you two lovebirds meet?”

“We work at the same bank,” Patrick explains. “Different floors, but - ” He squeezes Betty’s hip and smiles at her. “It’s hard not to notice a face like this one in the lobby.”

Jughead looks at her, and Betty looks back at him, her smile fading slowly. She feels like he might be judging her, and it turns out that she hates the feeling. She thinks about what he told her at the rehearsal dinner, about how Veronica’s family regards him - she doesn’t want him to think that Patrick’s like that, that she associates with people like that.

“Well, it was great to meet you, uh, Jughead,” Patrick says. “May I have this dance, Betty?”

“Sure,” she says softly, letting him lead her toward the dance floor. She can’t help but glance back at Jughead over her shoulder, feeling the strangest impulse to say that she’s sorry.

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Archie cuts in a couple songs later, slipping an arm around her and leading with surprising ease.

“Those private lessons paid off, Arch,” she says.

He grins and laughs. “Shut up.” His tie is loosened now, his suit jacket discarded and his sleeves rolled up, and he looks so happy that it makes Betty feel mushy and nostalgic. Veronica is so good for Archie, and she’s so happy for them both.

“How does it feel to be married?” she asks him.

“I should be asking _you_ that,” he teases. “You’ve been married for _much_ longer than I have.”

She frowns. “Archibald.”

“Ouch, full name,” he laughs. “It feels good,” he says more soberly. “Feels great.”

“Good,” Betty says warmly, and then catches sight of his parents over his shoulder. “Aw, Arch. I think your mom’s crying.”

“She’s having trouble with the fact that we’re _both_ not kids anymore. She told me last night she couldn’t believe how grown up we are.” He twirls her under his arm and then pulls her back in. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her you were married, too. The waterworks never would’ve stopped.”

Betty levels him with a look. “Why are we friends, again?”

“I dunno, Betts. _You_ came into _my_ backyard when we were four, if I recall correctly.”

“I was looking for my lost Barbie,” she grumbles, but in spite of herself, she smiles again.

The song ends, and they break apart to clap for the band. Veronica appears next to them, slipping a hand into Archie’s. “Mind if I steal my husband?” she asks, eyes sparkling; Archie’s hand has already settled on her waist, pulling her in closer. “You can go find _yours_ ,” she tells Betty with a mischievous smile.

Betty watches Archie whirl his new bride away with her smile still in place, only to turn around and run right into Patrick, who’s frowning deeply. “Oh,” she says on a little gasp, steadying herself with a hand against his chest. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Did she just say something about your _husband_?”

“Oh, it’s - ” Betty forces a laugh. “It’s a long story. A joke, really.”

Patrick keeps frowning at her, and Veronica’s voice floats through Betty’s head: _You are a terrible liar._

She sighs, and touches Patrick’s arm. “Let’s go talk.”

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Half an hour later, Betty re-enters the ballroom, her makeup freshly touched-up. She and Patrick weren’t a couple, but he’d asked her out repeatedly for nearly half a year before they finally went on a couple dates, and it was obvious that the fact that she could drunkenly marry someone else while also seeing him was something he found hurtful. It’s not exactly her fault that he thought they were more than they really were, but she still feels a bit like a jerk, like she led him on in some way. But she didn’t, she’s sure she didn’t - and it’s not like she _intended_ to marry Jughead, that should be clear to anyone.

As she moves toward the head table, she finds that her unintended spouse is the only one sitting at it; everyone else appears to be on the dance floor. She walks up to him and rests a hand against the back of his chair. “Where’s your date?” she asks.

He lifts his chin to point toward the dance floor; Betty looks out and sees that his date is currently making out with Reggie Mantle. “The fact that she found him charming _probably_ means we’re not meant to be,” he says wryly. “I’m pretty sure Ronnie only set us up because Monica minored in lit at NYU.” He tilts his head back slightly to look at her. “Where’s yours?”

“I think he sort of dumped me,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I could use more tequila. You in?”

Jughead looks at her for a moment and then nods slowly. “I’m in.”

Betty asks the bartender for two shots as they settle on barstools. She picks up her little glass and holds it out toward Jughead. “To Archie and Veronica.”

“To the Andrews’,” he agrees, clinking his glass against hers. They drink, and Betty grabs a lemon wedge to suck on.

“How long were you two together?” Jughead asks. Off her furrowed brow, he clarifies, “You and JFK.”

“We weren’t really together,” Betty says. “We got dinner once, coffee a couple times. He was… persistent, but he wasn’t my boyfriend. I’d like to believe that even my drunk self wouldn’t get married if I was in a relationship.”

“Why’d he break things off?” A beat later, he adds, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine.” Betty twirls her shot glass between her forefinger and thumb. “It was because of you.”

“Because of me?” he repeats, looking skeptical.

“Yeah, Veronica let it slip that I’m in possession of a husband. Why are you looking at me like that?”

He schools his expression immediately. “Like what?”

“Like… I said a dumb thing. Like that’s not a valid reason for Patrick to end things with me.”

“Well, it’s not, is it?” he asks, resting one elbow on the bar. “Our marriage will be annulled soon enough, once we sort things out with the lawyer.”

“But I still _married_ you, Jughead. That means something.”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Betty blinks, surprised by herself. _That means something?_

“I mean.” She licks her lips nervously. “It means something for Patrick. For… how committed I was to him. Which was… not a lot.”

“Because you married me,” Jughead says lowly.

“Because I married you,” she agrees, meeting his eyes hesitantly.

The taste of tequila is still lingering on Betty’s tongue, and she feels like she’s breathing shallowly as Jughead just keeps on looking at her with those blue eyes of his. She remembers what those eyes looked like when they’d gone dark with lust, pinned on her own eyes as he whispered things to her: _just like that; say my name; come on, baby -_

Betty sucks in a sharp breath, trying to force herself to inhale more deeply. “We should order drinks!” she says, her voice a little hoarse. “Actual drinks, not shots. We wouldn’t want to forget this wedding, too.”

“That’d be bad,” he agrees, but neither of them turn toward the bartender.

Instead, he touches the knee of the leg she’s got crossed atop the other, fingers tracing around her kneecap over her dress. It shouldn’t be sexy, but it is, and it shouldn’t rile her up, but it does.

“What’ll you have?” Jughead asks her.

She lifts her shoulders in a demure little shrug, reaching over and sliding his tie between her index and middle fingers. She doesn’t tug him closer via that tie and into a kiss like she’s longing to, and she doesn’t go full cheeseball and say _you_ , even though she can imagine the way it’d make him laugh into her mouth.

Instead, she lowers her lashes and says, simply, “Whatever you’re having.”

 

 

tbc.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A conversation held by your authors while this chapter was being written:  
> "You made the fic dirty."  
> "No, _you_ made the fic dirty!"

They end up ordering simple rum and coke - diet for her - which Jughead procures from the bar with what he considers to be impressive speed. He doesn’t know what specifically is going on, but as both of their dates seem to have left them, it appears that fate is once again playing her game with he and Betty.

Not that he really minds, Jughead thinks, training one eye on the table where Betty is sitting and waiting for him. She’s gorgeous, especially in this particular dress but also, he recalls, without; and right now, he’s not exactly gearing up for a repeat of their Las Vegas night, but he definitely wouldn’t be opposed to a repeat of _some elements,_ this time hopefully with a memory attached.

Jughead can’t pride himself on being able to read women that well, despite his attempts, but he does think that Betty’s into it too. She keeps looking at him with heavy lids and pouting her lips, whether intentionally or not, in his direction, and it’s fucking working. Placing a hand on her knee suddenly feels like the throes of passion; _talking_ to her feels like a thirty-year anniversary.

He approaches the table, ready for … well, anything.

“Rum and coke, milady,” Jughead proclaims, setting the drink in front of her and then slipping into the chair beside her.

“Diet, right?” Betty asks, reaching for the glass anyway and taking a sip. She must taste the aspartame because she nods in contentment. “Thank you, Juggie.”

Jughead gives a slight nod in response and lets his eyes travel over her collarbone and shoulders. Smooth, perfect skin, stretched across a body that - well, he’d love to show some further appreciation with _his_ body, including the tongue that he remembers her enjoying so intensely.

“Should try full-calorie coke,” he says instead, downing part of his. “Let the sugar flow through you.”

“My mother only ever let me drink diet coke,” she says, setting her glass down and crossing her legs toward him. “You know, ‘a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips’. Old habits die hard.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jughead declares, pushing his chair toward her and wishing more than anything that her dress was shorter, so that when he places his hand on her thigh, it’ll touch her soft skin instead of fabric. “Something called moderation exists, if that’s really a concern, but you can tell your mother that I’ve seen the hips in question, and they’re glorious.”

Betty giggles, her fingertips grazing his forearm. “Sure. ‘Hey Mom, my secret Vegas-husband told me to tell you that he thinks there’s nothing wrong with my hips.’ That will go over so well.”

“Very persuasive,” Jughead agrees, his thumb rubbing her leg. He has the sudden image of pulling that leg to wrap around his hip and thrusting into her, her head falling back against the wall, her arms clutching his shoulders. _Get a grip, asshole,_ he tells himself, but whatever this heavy _thing_ is between them, it’s making his hand tighten instead. “Any other body parts your mother has thoughts on? Because I can assure you that I have detailed opinions about nearly all of them.”

It seems for a moment that Betty is not breathing, but two beats later there’s an audible exhale, and she asks, “Any favourites?”

 _Dangerous territory,_ his brain says, _abort,_ but this path is narrow and there’s no way to turn around. “A few,” Jughead replies. “My memory is a little hazy, though. Shame we can’t remember more of our wedding night, darling.” He nods his head toward Veronica and Archie on the dance floor, who are wrapped up in each other so tightly that they’re moreso just swaying at this point. “They’re doing it right, I think.”

Beside him, Betty smiles. “Yeah,” she sighs. Then, a moment later, “Wait, you mean marrying me drunk in Vegas wasn’t _everything_ you dreamed of as a little boy? I’m offended!”

Jughead laughs and turns his palm on her leg so that it faces upward, a quiet invitation.

She takes it, sliding her hand into his, their fingers threading. Her head drops slowly onto his shoulder, and they watch Veronica and Archie dance for awhile in comfortable silence. Veronica looks both ethereal and modern, a striking balance, and Archie - well, Jughead’s gotta hand it to the guy. For being not exactly from Veronica’s world, he seems to blend in pretty well, smiling and laughing with all of the society people while still keeping a particular expression only for his bride.

It’s a fucking fairytale, and part of Jughead is kind of jealous. What does happiness like that even _feel_ like?

It’s Betty’s voice that ultimately interrupts his pity-party. “Juggie?”

“Yeah, babe?” he asks, the term of endearment slipping out easily, like a fish through a river.

Her smaller hand squeezes his, then she says, “I wish I could remember more of that night, too.”

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Ten minutes later they’re in a one-stall handicapped bathroom with a locked door. There’s a small counter that’s fairly clean, a strong handle to use for leverage, and a hand dryer to cover the noise if need be. Naturally, as the height of class and romance, Jughead is proud to have located this Eden, but his moment of self-satisfaction is cut short by Betty’s mouth on his.

From the table, they’d risen in unison, as if on the same wavelength - which, given the serendipity of all of their interactions so far, perhaps they are. Betty had taken advantage of their already-joined hands and tugged Jughead off to the side of the ballroom and out a smaller, less obvious door. They’d spent a few frantic minutes searching for a closet of sorts until this bathroom manifested itself in the nick of time.

His hands can’t stay off her for any longer.

As they kiss, Betty shoves his suit jacket off his shoulders and untucks his dress shirt. His jacket falls to the floor and his shirt is definitely going to be wrinkled, but even Veronica’s likely wrath cannot dissuade Jughead from this moment. He sets his hands on Betty’s waist, then slides them down to her ass and still slightly lower, bending to grip the backs of her thighs. He lifts her onto the counter, breaking the kiss momentarily, and lets out a grunt of frustration at the maze of her long dress.

“It’s _summer,_ for fuck’s sake,” Jughead swears, trying in vain to access her legs. “Who picks a long skirt-”

“You didn’t have this many opinions eight months ago when we chose the dresses,” Betty giggles, reaching down to grab the hem. She rucks it up and then rocks slightly from one side to the other as the fabric inches upward beneath her. When her knees are bare, Jughead immediately drops one hand onto her leg, then lifts the other to cup the back of her neck.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think I...” He kisses her in a rush, cutting himself off, and is mildly surprised to feel one of her palms against his cheek. The kiss is like an argument, each of them making their case and then permitting a rebuttal, but it’s Betty who eventually wins. She draws his lower lip between her teeth and nibbles gently, which does _something_ to Jughead’s entire being - this little _minx-_

His hand grips her thigh with added pressure, probably tight enough to bruise, but his brief concern is overpowered by his need to touch her and keep touching her and never _stop_ touching her, and the hand moves upward and then around until the flat of the counter impedes its further movement. Jughead drops his left hand from her neck and grips her hip with it, tugging her forward until her legs are dangling from the edge, then slips his other hand between her legs.

 _“Juggie,”_ Betty gasps, her thighs widening further as he cups her over her damp underwear. She’s propping herself up with one hand behind her, wrist bent at what must be at least a slightly uncomfortable angle, so he moves to support her with his left arm.

Her head tilts backward and his lips duck into the hollow of her throat. “Do you remember now, baby?” he asks, tracing his tongue over the delicate charm of her necklace. “Do you remember me fucking you? In the bed, on the chair, against the wall.”

“I remember,” she says breathlessly, letting out a high-pitched mewling sound as he pushes her underwear to the side and slides a finger into her. “Oh _christ,_ Juggie, I remember.”

Jughead’s mouth trails lower on her chest and stops to nose at the low neckline of her dress. “Pull it to the side, baby,” he orders, and when one of her breasts falls out he swears again. _“Fuck,_ baby, I remember these, too,” he adds, taking her nipple into his mouth and releasing it with an audible _pop._ He adds another finger and moves his thumb to her clit, pressing firmly and starting the gentle circular motion that his hazy memory brings forward.

“Ohmygod,” she’s panting, now on her elbows. “Jughead, _please-”_

His thumb picks up speed and pressure and his fingers curl inside her, eliciting something from her throat that sounds half like a sob and half like unrepentant need. He moves his lips back to her chest, delicately biting down and then using the flick of his tongue to soothe her.

“Juggie I’m - I-”

“Let go, baby,” Jughead urges, sucking a light hickey into the top of her breast. She is not going to forget this.

She does, a quarter of a minute later; she comes apart on his hand, probably ruining part of her dress, and he kisses her as soon as her head lifts.

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells her.

Betty raises an eyebrow and glances down at herself: half on her back on a bathroom counter, one breast exposed, with her legs spread and his hand still between them. “You’ve got a strange idea of beauty,” she says, but her blissed-out smile cannot be hidden.

He kisses her again.

When they pull apart, Betty sits up, fixing the top of her dress first. Jughead hands her some paper towel, and she cleans herself up as best as possible before she ultimately hops down to the floor and slides her underwear off altogether. She crumples them into a ball and shoves them into the garbage can, then joins him to wash her hands at the sink.

He’s still hard, though he’s willing himself desperately to calm, and she bites her lip at the sight. “Can I-”

“Later,” Jughead says, shaking his head. He’s already kept her in this bathroom long enough; if they’re gone any longer, Veronica will definitely have their heads.

Her tongue flicks to the corner of her lips teasingly. “There’s a later?” she questions.

His eyes drop to that tongue. _Fuck._ He has half a mind to say _actually, I changed my mind, get on your knees,_ but the mere concept of Veronica screeching in rage keeps him on track, and Jughead settles for saying, “There is no way I’m done with you yet. After the wedding - come home with me. A - a free pass. In place of our wedding night.”

Betty swallows, stilling her hands in the sink, and stares at him. “I can’t,” she says, and for a moment Jughead feels like his stomach has plummeted a thousand feet, until she adds, “I have a cat I need to feed. Come to mine?”

Jughead smiles, dries his hands, and then pushes more paper towel into hers. “It’s a date.”

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Betty’s apartment, he vaguely recalls, is only a few blocks from his, so their cab ride over there is a fairly familiar length. It’s late, as they’d had to wait until Veronica and Archie left before being given the all-clear to go, but that’s probably just as well; Jughead doesn’t need Veronica seeing her best friend leave with Archie’s best friend, not after the debacle in Vegas. He’s not ashamed, really, of what he and Betty had done, but he does want Veronica to be happy, and having it be all about her is typically a key part of that.

His brain feels tired as they get into the elevator, but once the door closes and Betty kisses him, he’s suddenly awake again. He’s been trying to suppress his need to touch her all night, since they’d come back from the bathroom under Archie’s suspicious but mercifully silent eye, but now - now they’re alone again, and now he can have her.

She doesn’t live too high - ninth floor - so the elevator ride doesn’t take that long. When it dings, Betty takes his hand and leads him out and to the left. She’s down a few units, so he lets his eyes trace the roll of her hips for those few extra steps, and when they stop in front of unit 95 so that she can dig in her purse for keys, Jughead grips them. He presses himself against her ass, smiling at the gasp she gives, then reaches around and slides his hand inside the top of her dress.

“Open the door, baby,” he murmurs in her ear, flicking his tongue at her earlobe.

Betty’s fingers tremble - hopefully, he notices, with desire. “I have neighbours, Juggie,” she breathes, half a giggle slipping out.

“Good.” He squeezes her breast. “They’ll know you’re mine.”

She turns the key in the lock, then pushes the door open. “Actually, you took my name, remember?” she teases. She turns to face him and causes his hands to fall away from her, but the flush of her cheeks and the darkening of her eyes is unmistakable. “I think that makes you _mine.”_

Jughead grins. “It’s an archaic notion anyway, but - oh, hey there.” He looks down at the ginger-coloured cat that has appeared at his feet. The cat is winding its way through his ankles, purring loudly already. Jughead crouches and strokes its soft fur. “Who’s this little guy?”

“Her name is Caramel,” Betty says, sliding her heels off. “Actually - there’s kibble in the cupboard beside the sink, if you could just give her half a cup that would be awesome. I’m just going to go change.”

 _Don’t bother,_ he wants to tell her, _you’ll be naked again in five minutes,_ but on cue, Caramel meows at him expectantly and he chuckles. “Okay okay, furry baby, let’s go.”

 

* * *

__

Betty spends a couple moments just staring at her dresser, willing herself to chill out. She can hear Caramel mewling in the kitchen, and the soft rumble of Jughead’s voice, and her whole body feels trembly with nerves. Somehow, ridiculously, this feels like a bigger deal than drunken consummation of a Vegas marriage, like a bigger deal than a hook-up in a hotel bathroom. This is her apartment, her bedroom, and - for the time being - her _husband_ , and she sort of feels like she has something to prove, like whatever happens next needs to live up to the wedding night she can only remember pieces of.

She puts on one of her fancier sets of underwear, a deep red bustier and matching panties, both of which are made up almost entirely of sheer lace, and then, because it feels ridiculous to put on any of the outfits she’d actually wear on a date, she slips into a pair of terrycloth shorts and one of her favourite sleep shirts, which says _I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie_ on the front. After she wrestles the pins holding her updo together out of her hair, she runs a brush through it quickly, and re-opens her bedroom door.

Jughead’s perched on her couch, his suit jacket and tie discarded, the first few buttons of his shirt undone. She skims her tongue over her bottom lip and murmurs, “Hi,” and then he’s on his feet and on _her_ , backing her up until the backs of her legs hit her mattress, mouthing at her neck, tugging at her hair, and she rips a button off his shirt in her efforts to get it off of him.

“Oh,” she says on a soft gasp. “This shirt’s probably expensive - ”

He lifts her chin with his hand, his touch a little rough in a way that makes heat coil low in her belly. “Doesn’t matter, baby,” he says lowly, nudging her back onto the bed and settling his body over hers.

Betty wraps her legs around him and their kisses grow a little slower, a little softer, as they try to re-learn each other with clearer heads. Jughead slides his hand beneath her shirt and runs his fingers along lace.

“Is this for me?” he murmurs against her lips.

“No,” she says flatly, teasing him, “it’s all for Caramel.”

He breathes a laugh against her lips but squeezes one of her breasts hard enough to hurt, drawing a gasp out of her mouth as her hips cant up against his. She slips a hand between them to retaliate, stroking him over his slacks, relishing his choked groan and the way he presses his face into her neck. He pushes his hips firmly into hers, and they grind against each other for a moment, until Betty starts whimpering with want.

Jughead pulls her shirt up over her head and tugs down both her shorts and panties before he starts pressing little kisses above the cups of her bustier, and Betty means to say, _wait, it’s your turn,_ but the things he’s doing to her body -

Her back arches up off the bed, and she presses a hand to the top of his head, pushing down slightly.

He bites a nipple through lace and flashes her a grin as he mutters, “ _Bossy_ ,” but there’s something appreciative about his tone, and it’s only a moment later that he’s licking at her, teasing her, and she clutches at his hair and her sheets as her hips roll and she rides his tongue, his hands sliding under her ass to bring her even closer to his mouth, and Betty is gasping pleas and nonsense when she comes _hard_ , her toes curling tightly.

Jughead plants kisses along her jaw with his wet mouth as she comes down and murmurs, “Condom?” by her ear. She blinks her eyes open and gestures to her nightstand.

As he settles back in next to her with the foil packet in his hand, she presses a hand to his chest and pushes him onto his back. She kneels with one of her legs between both of his as he rolls the condom on, settling against his thigh so that he can feel how wet he’s made her, and he looks at her like she’s torturing him, his eyes hooded as he murmurs, “Fuck, Betty,” and grabs her hips, pulling her over him.

Their moans blend as she sinks onto him, and she shifts her hips a bit, adjusting to him as she digs her teeth into her bottom lip. He surges up beneath her and kisses her, more gently than she was expecting, before he murmurs, “Feel good?”

Her lashes are fluttering rapidly as she dips her head in a little nod before she nudges another kiss against his lips. He undoes the clasps at her back with slightly clumsy fingers as they find a rhythm together, and then he gently slides the bustier’s straps down her arms, and she does the rest of the work, pulling it off and tossing it to the side. Jughead immediately closes his mouth onto one of her breasts, and her head tips back as she clutches at his shoulders.

“Jughead,” she breathes. “I’m - ”

“Yeah, baby,” he says against the sweaty skin between her breaths, his own words faint and a little distracted. He flips them over, taking her by surprise, and she ends up with her legs hooked up over his shoulders as he thrusts into her and breathes, “Thank fuck for yoga.”

She starts to laugh, but then he hits what feels like just the right angle, and it morphs into a soft cry of his name as she fists her sheets tightly in one hand.

“Do you like that, Betts?” he asks softly, his words coming out in bursts against her cheek, his breath hot against her skin. “D’you like fucking your husband?”

It sounds a little like teasing, but she’s too lost in her pleasure now to do anything but gasp, “Yes. Yes.”

Jughead lifts his head to look right into her eyes. “Say it,” he whispers, and kisses her, hard and messy.

Into his mouth, her words broken by kisses and sharp breaths, she mumbles, “I like fucking my husband,” and just like that, they come together, his forefinger and thumb twisting around one of her nipples to help her along.

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Betty wakes in the morning to the sound of Caramel’s soft but demanding meows, the cat’s daily prompt for Betty to get up and feed her. She opens her eyes only to find that Jughead’s looking at her, his own eyes half-open.

“There’s an alarm you can’t forget to set,” he murmurs.

She smiles a little. “Yeah.”

“Want me to feed her?”

“No, no, I can do it,” she says, and adds, “Thank you, though.”

 __“__ Thank _you_ ,” he says, shifting closer to her and kissing her softly, “for last night.”

Heat spikes in her cheeks immediately. “I think I should be thanking you.”

“Why’s that?” he asks, toying with a lock of her hair, twirling it around his finger.

“You know why,” she says quietly.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t find hearing you say it,” he says, half a smile appearing on his lips. “ _Thanks for the mind-blowing orgasms, Jughead_.”

“Mind-blowing?” Betty repeats, lifting both her eyebrows. “I don’t know about _mind-blowing_.”

“Careful, baby,” he says, thumbing her bottom lip. “That sounds like a challenge.”

She giggles softly. Beneath the sheets, her fingers brush against his erection, and she wraps her hand around him slowly. “Not a challenge,” she says. “My mind just feels like it’s intact, that’s all.”

His eyes search her face for a moment. His thumb is still against her lip, so she takes it into her mouth, sucking lightly. “Betty,” he murmurs, giving his head a slight shake, as though he’s warning her off.

“What, Juggie?” she asks softly. “Maybe I want to blow _your_ mind.” She flicks her eyes downward. “Among other things.”

He groans softly when she starts to pump her hand, leaning in to kiss her. “I’d never deny a lady what she wants,” he says softly, teasingly. “But I think there’s another lady by the door who’s waiting for a meal.”

Betty sighs, pulling back just enough to look at him. After a beat, she proposes shyly, “Meet me in the shower?”

Emphatically, he says, “ _Yes_.”

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Once Betty’s finished drying her hair, she joins Jughead in the kitchen, where he’s sitting at one of the stools by the counter - her only eating space - sipping coffee from a cup and reading the news on her tablet. He smiles when he sees her and she smiles back, walking over and leaning a hip against the counter.

“So,” she says.

He sets her tablet aside. “So.”

“That… wedding night redo kind of extended into the morning.”

“The _early_ morning,” Jughead says, smile still in place, though his eyes have grown a bit more serious. “Basically still night.”

She quirks a brow. “Nine o’clock in the morning is nighttime?”

“Oh, yes,” he says seriously. “I define night as the eight hours after one goes to sleep, and I don’t think we made it to bed until two, so… we’re well within the timeframe.”

Betty nods slowly. “Good.”

“Good,” he echoes.

She watches Caramel wind her way through the legs of Jughead’s stool for a moment, and then says, “Jughead, I’d - I’d like for us to be friends. I know we’ve sort of become...solid acquaintances, through this whole wedding process, and then we jumped to a whole different kind of relationship, but I think it would be good if we… found a middle ground, and became friends.”

One corner of his mouth turns upward. “I’d like that too, Betty. I like you. You’re a good egg.”

“A _good egg_?” she repeats on a quiet laugh.

“Yeah,” he says, looking only a little embarrassed. “You are. You know… Ronnie’s dated some jerks in her day, and while I didn’t hate Archie right away or anything, I really started liking him once I met you. I figured that any person you called a friend had to be a good one.”

“Really?” she asks, feeling touched. “I - thank you. I think I kind of felt the same way. Veronica was so… I don’t know, so up there in the echelons of society. I didn’t know how she could possibly be the right match for a guy from Riverdale, but when I met you I realized that… I don’t know, that her heart’s not a snob.” She winces. “I’m sorry, that sounds terrible. I don’t mean that you’re not, like, worthy company for snobby people. You are. You’re - ”

“Betty,” he says on a laugh, getting up from his seat. “I get it. It was sweet. Thank you.”

She breathes a laugh of her own and looks down at her feet. “I don’t know why you make me nervous.”

“Probably because you married me on a whim,” he says wryly, and then holds out his arms to give her a hug.

She steps closer, slipping her arms around him in turn and resting her cheek against his chest for a moment. His stomach grumbles as they pull apart, and they both laugh again.

“Do you want some breakfast before you go?” Betty offers. “I can make you an omelette.”

“Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“Oh, no - it’s no trouble.”

“Honestly,” he says slowly. “You live really close to one of my favourite hole-in-the-wall diners in the city. I was thinking I might head over there.”

“Oh,” Betty says, and firmly ignores the way her stomach seems to sink with disappointment. “Alright.”

Jughead looks at her for a minute and then lifts his hand to rub at the back of his neck as he asks, “Want to come with?”

“Yeah?” Betty asks, and feels almost instantly embarrassed by the amount of hope in her voice.

He nods, a grin forming on his face. “Yeah. Seems rude to make your wife eat alone.”

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The diner Jughead takes her to is a bit scuffed up, but clean, and Betty contentedly settles on one side of a booth and begins flipping through an old laminated menu. Across from her, in his dress pants and shirt from the night before, Jughead looks out of place, even though he’s attempted to dress down the look with some buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up. She’s wearing one of her nicer sundresses in an effort to make it look a bit less like he’s doing a walk of shame on his own, but still, he appears dressed for a formal occasion.

Despite this, he’s the one who stares at her as she peruses the menu, and when she looks up at him with an expression meant to ask _what?_ he says, simply, “You look beautiful.”

Betty bites back her smile and tells him lightly, “So do you.”

They order - eggs benedict, bacon, hash browns, and a waffle for Jughead; pancakes with fruit for Betty - and immediately afterward, both of their phones beep with notifications. It’s a text from Veronica, a photo of her standing on a beach with Archie, the ocean sparkling behind them, beaming smiles on their faces.

“They look happy,” Betty says warmly. The photo tugs at something in her chest, something she’s not yet ready to fully analyze.

“Yeah,” Jughead says. He sets his phone aside and jokes, “Their honeymoon looks better than ours,” as he gestures to the diner.

“I don’t know,” Betty says lightly. “I hear this is one of the best places in the neighbourhood.”

Jughead’s wry smile goes soft. “Oh, you hear that, huh?”

“Mmhm,” she says with a little nod. She lines the salt and pepper shakers up neatly for something to do with her hands.

“I hope you have a reliable source.”

“You know a lady never reveals her sources,” she teases. “Speaking of which - tell me about what you’re writing lately.”

He rests his elbows on the table and leans in. “You’ll never believe the excitement of it all. I’ve been assigned a thousand-word piece on a post office scandal.”

Betty leans in, too. “A scandal?”

“I’ve got three words for you, Betty,” he says, his expression serious save for the glint in his eyes. “Priority. Shipping. Scam.”

She fakes a gasp. In her purse, her phone begins to ring. She reaches for it, and recognizes the names that appear on her call display as those of the partners at the legal firm she’s been consulting with regarding the snag in their attempts to get an annulment.

“Veronica?” Jughead guesses.

Betty glances at him and says, “Yeah.” She silences the call and puts her phone back in her purse, turning toward him again. “I’ll call her back later.”

 

 

 

tbc.


	6. Chapter 6

In his defense, he really _did_ try to get over Betty.

Not, Jughead thinks to himself wordlessly, as he swirls coffee grounds around the bottom of a chipped mug, that there’s anything to ‘get over’. They were never _a thing,_ unless you count accidentally marrying each other and then rehashing their wedding night during and after their best friends’ wedding. Which he doesn’t, not really, partly because every one of their interactions has been tinged so far with an overwhelming sense that this is casual, fleeting - just for fun, except for the now-we-need-an-annulment part.

Besides, after their second tryst, Jughead thinks that they’re supposed to be moving on - or so they’d discussed. _Friends,_ Betty had said, and regardless of how often he’s thought about her over the past ten days since then, friends is what she’ll get.

Kind of, anyway; they haven’t really spoken much, probably because Archie and Veronica are gone on their honeymoon, he and Betty are both back to work, and they didn’t really hang out a lot before all of this happened, anyway. Falling back into routine means not texting her to go for coffee like he would with Veronica, for example, and in that way, this _should_ be easy.

Yet somehow, it’s not. He keeps thinking about her, occasionally throughout the day but most especially at night, when his mind is more free to wander and inevitably is drawn to her. Betty and the _memory_ of Betty: writhing beneath his hands, biting the corner of her lip, moving above him. It shifts something in Jughead in a way that he’s never felt before, physically or otherwise, leaving him unsure whether he should slide his hand into his boxers or over to his phone to text her. So far, he’s opted for the former, but today he’s feeling particularly weak, and there is a strong possibility he’ll pick the other soon.

It’s Instagram’s fault, really; one of the bridesmaids has tagged him in a candid photo of the bridal party from when they were milling around the Great Lawn in Central Park, waiting for the official photographers to set up a new shot, and in a moment of particular curiosity he’d clicked on Betty’s account. Fifteen minutes and half a cup of black coffee later, and Jughead is still stalking his way through her old photos, feeling creepy as fuck and yet also unable to block his fixation on an old picture of her from the previous summer (she’s wearing a bikini top and shorts, and while it’s not even a particularly enticing photograph, he is a desperate man).

It takes all his will, but Jughead finally manages to close the app altogether. He shakes his head, hoping to clear it a little, then flicks his thumb toward his contact list and lets it hover over her name. **Betty Cooper.** One slide and it could be ringing, he knows, or a few taps and they could be texting, but does he want this? (Yes.) Does _she_ want this? (Uncertain.) Is this wise? (No.)

He opens a new message.

And then, as if the Fates have finally smiled upon him, _she_ texts him first.

Sort of, anyway: there are no words in Betty’s message, at least not directly. She’s sent an image, a photo of her bare feet curled over the porcelain lip of what looks to be a bathtub, with the subtle glare of water at the very border.

 ** _That’s quite the opening,_** Jughead types, unable to think of anything more smooth and at an utter loss about how to respond to her in a _not_ sexually charged way. He’s minimally content with his response for about half a second, then second-guesses himself: is this her reaching out? Is his reply not flirtatious _enough?_ What if she sees what he’s sent and feels like she’s barking up the wrong tree? What if she thinks he _actually_ wants to be just friends?

(Which, okay. He does want to be friends. He also just can’t stop thinking about her naked, and it’s currently a little difficult for him to reconcile.)

But then, Betty replies.

_**What I was gonna initially reply with was too dirty, and now I’m not quite sure what to say.** _

Jughead grins, taps into the message bar, and types hastily. _**No such thing as too dirty when it comes to you, babe.**_

He stares at his phone screen, waits a couple of breaths, then sets it down. He cannot spend his whole night waiting for a girl to text him back. He _cannot._ It goes against his entire nature: a lone wolf, fierce in his independence. He doesn’t _need_ people, not in this way - he doesn’t think about them nonstop, doesn’t wonder what they’re doing every minute, doesn’t dwell on the startling connection he felt because he doesn’t _have_ startling connections. It’s safer that way; if someone matters, they usually leave, and keeping his circle of Important People as small as possible is an obvious and openly self-admitted coping mechanism.

That’s why _this_ is so fucking terrifying.

But then his phone buzzes again, and Jughead’s heart leaps. _Jesus Christ,_ he tells himself, _get a hold of yourself._ Still, his whole body feels warm as he reaches for his phone, and for a moment Jughead lets himself sit there in that happiness, wondering what it would be like if he could have it all the time.

 _ **Guess I shouldn’t have gotten in the bath, then,**_ Betty responds. She’s attached another photo, this one of her in profile with her legs drawn strategically to her chest, obviously naked.

_Fuck._

He feels unsteady and immediately swipes his thumb over her name to call her, slightly embarrassed at the heavy beat that his heart gives as it starts to ring.

Then, just as he’s convincing himself that he should hang up, Betty answers.

“Hi,” she breathes, the smile evident in her voice. “I was hoping you’d call.”

“Hard not to with a picture like that,” Jughead murmurs, leaning back into the worn cushions of his sofa. “I almost fell off the couch.”

She giggles. “That was the desired effect.”

“The only thing better than that picture is the real thing.” He sighs and closes his eyes. “That definitely isn’t gonna help me forget about it.”

The line is quiet for a moment too long, then Betty’s voice comes, smaller and quieter. “Why are you trying to forget?”

Jughead’s eyes snap open, wide and round. “Uhh.” He sits up and glances at the window on instinct, as though if he could get to it quickly enough, he could leap out and into the hole in the ground that would surely swallow him right now. “You said you wanted to be friends. So I’m trying to respect that.”

“Because it’d be odd not to be friends with my husband,” she teases, “I didn’t mean that I didn’t want - I mean, only if you also wanted … this doesn’t need to be _more_ complicated, is what I mean. We already have the whole wedding thing to contend with, I - let’s take it one step at a time, okay?”

Jughead smiles, biting his lip. “Yeah, okay.” He clears his throat. “Can that step include going for a drink, by any chance?”

“I’m free tomorrow.”

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Jughead wakes up the following morning to sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window. His apartment is east-facing and tends to be bathed in gold in the mornings, which while it _is_ pretty, usually annoys him. He’s more of a late-night person than an early riser, and on most mornings there’s nothing that he wants to see less after three hours’ sleep than the bright sun. But today, he’s okay with it, because after ten days of trying to ignore his growing feelings for her, he finally gets to see Betty. He just needs to get through work first.

The day moves slowly, so he sends a text to Betty at noon saying **_Black Horse at eight?_** , then spends a pathetic half-hour waiting for her to respond. When she does, it’s a simple _**sure! can’t wait**_ , which leaves him slightly disappointed. Jughead gets it - she has a job and is at work and can’t spend the whole day texting him - but he’s feeling a little bit like a teenage girl waiting by a pink telephone for a boy to call and it would just be nice to know that he’s not the only one.

After the fifteenth minute of alternating between staring at a wall and his cell phone, Jughead puts it to the side and drags his laptop closer to him. He should _probably_ get some work done, realistically, both because he has deadlines and also because it’s likely to make the time go by more quickly. He closes the blinds in his apartment, brews a new pot of coffee, and pours himself into the chapter that he’s been stalled on for days. The blank document has been taunting him, the little black blinking cursor acting like fucking Pennywise the Clown or something, but today he needs the distraction.

As it turns out, the aggressive need for an alternate purpose is helpful, and Jughead ends up putting a big dent in his piece. His focus ends up so tight on his chapter that he actually misses a follow-up text from Betty, only noticing it when he gets up to use the washroom.

 _ **Caramel was asking about you last night,**_ it says, followed by a picture of Betty’s cat lounging across her knees. **_What should I tell her?_**

It’s from half an hour ago, so Jughead assumes she’s gone back to work by now, but he replies anyway. **_Tell her if she plays her cards right, I’ll see her again soon ;)_** , then adds, **_Also, that does not look comfortable at all._**

To his surprise, Betty does respond fairly quickly. **_Cats are liquid. Caramel can be comfortable anywhere, especially if it takes away from my comfort, sigh. But good! Both of us are excited to see you._** The message finishes with a heart emoji, and that little two-dimensional heart keeps Jughead flying high for the rest of the night.

At seven o’clock, Jughead takes a shower, gets dressed, then spends a futile fifteen minutes fighting with the odd flop of his hair before he gives up. It’s always a futile effort, but he keeps trying every other week anyway - his hair will do what it wants, which is at least part of the reason that he usually leaves it hidden underneath his trusty old beanie. He and Betty have agreed to meet at the pub, and at about twenty to eight, he heads out.

He’s two minutes away, midway through a block of old brownstones, when Betty texts that she’s arrived and has a table. He types out a quick **_almost there_** , quickens his pace, and is only slightly embarrassed at the half-jog that he ends up doing for the remainder of the way there.

When Jughead gets to the pub, he immediately scans the tables for a flash of blonde hair. He locates Betty fairly easily; she’s sitting at a table for two a couple of rows from the window, wearing a strappy white dress that reminds Jughead a little too strongly of the kind of thing she _should_ have gotten to wear on her wedding day. He wonders, not for the first time, how she can even look at him - he must be the biggest disappointment of her life - but then she spots him, stands, and smiles, and the thought falls away.

“Hi,” she says, leaning into the hug that he gives her. “You look nice.”

Jughead glances down at the old jeans and blue button-down he’s wearing. “Thanks,” he says, not having put too much thought into it. “You look gorgeous. As always.”

Betty blushes. “Thank you.” She sits down. “I haven’t ordered anything yet.”

He glances at the menu, spots something called the blackhorse burger, and instantly knows what he’s going to get. “Take your time,” he tells her. “I pretty much order the burger wherever I go.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “That’s interesting,” she says. “Do you work out a lot, or - how do you possibly stay fit if you get the burger everywhere?”

He laughs; it’s not the first time he’s gotten that question. “I do walk like, everywhere. _Everywhere._ And occasionally I work out. But mostly I was blessed with a fast metabolism.”

“I’m jealous,” Betty chuckles, gesturing to herself. “This is the product of a lot of gym time and salads. I know they’re scientifically unsound, but I admit I was tempted to go on one of those stupid cleanses post-Vegas.”

Jughead frowns slightly and then eyes her with intention. He presses his foot against hers under the table. “I don’t know, babe, I’ve seen you naked post-Vegas,” he comments, slowly taking a sip of the glass of water that is placed in front of him. “And believe me, there’s _nothing_ to cleanse.”

Betty bites her lip and glances down, cheeks flushing. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

“Just the truth.”

Betty starts telling him about her co-worker - apparently, he’d recently accidentally been declared dead, and was currently in the middle of a weird legal entanglement to prove that he was, in fact, still alive - and he listens intently, at least until a breaking news alert flashes on the bar’s screen. His eyes are drawn instantly by the bright colours of the alert banner, and then kept there by what it says.

_Runaway Teen Found Dead._

The general din of the bar is too loud to hear the details too well, but closed captioning is set on the television directly opposite him seemingly for that purpose specifically. He scours the white block letters for more information, his eyes moving as rapidly as his quickly beating heart.

_The body of Mary Robertson, seventeen, found in an alleyway in Jersey City. Miss Robertson was a ward of the state who had run away from her foster parents’ home in Newark three weeks ago. Jersey City police refuse to comment as the investigation is ongoing, but sources tell ABC that there were signs of both drug use and foul play at the scene._

Jughead’s heart freezes. Seventeen. _No no no no no._ His breath is caught in his throat as he watches, waiting for a photo of Mary Robertson to be put on the screen. _Please don’t be her, please don’t be her, please don’t-_

“Jughead?”

His eyes snap to Betty, who is leaning across the table with both of her hands on one of his, frowning in concern. She tilts her head and strokes her thumb over the back of his. “Huh?” he asks.

“Are you okay?”

Jughead swallows, intending to tell her _yes, of course, everything’s fine,_ but then the TV shows a photo of a redheaded girl that is distinctly _not_ his little sister and all he gets out is a heavy sigh of relief instead.

 _“Jughead.”_ Betty’s voice is lower, more urgent. “You look like you’re going to throw up.”

“Sorry, I - just something on the news.” He looks down, but as he does so Jughead notices Betty’s eyes flicking to the TV screen to her left.

She watches for a few moments in silence, then she asks, “The missing girl?”

He keeps his eyes firmly trained on his water glass. “Yeah.”

“It’s very sad. Heartbreaking,” Betty says, and he can tell by the tone of her voice that she means it. “Did you know her?”

Jughead shakes his head. “No. I - she’s the same age as my little sister.”

“Oh.” Betty’s hands tighten on his. “What’s her name?”

An empty, mirthless laugh is heard, and after a moment Jughead realizes that it came from him. “I don’t know,” he says. “Her name was Forsythia, officially - yeah, I know, my parents were really dedicated to those syllables, weirdly. We used to call her Jellybean, same as people call me Jughead, but we got separated years ago and I think her name got changed because I haven’t been able to track her down anywhere.”

Betty inhales quickly, so sharply that it makes his gaze lift to her, and he is startled to see the tears in her eyes. She wipes at them quickly when she realizes he’s noticed, as if wanting to temper her reaction, and then quietly speaks. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s _completely_ fine, but … sorry, I’m just a little confused - what do you mean, separated?”

Jughead presses his lips together and glances at the window. It’s starting to rain. _Fitting,_ he thinks, then sighs audibly. She’ll inevitably find out; most of it is a matter of public record, anyway, so even if he doesn’t tell her, she could easily find out through a quick Google search.

“Jellybean is quite a bit younger than me,” Jughead begins, still not making eye contact with her. He fixes on a spot just behind her head, a mark on the wall where something had once been hung and then was removed. He wonders what it was. “When she was a little girl - really young - our mom left. She married Dad too young and she said she needed time to figure out who she was. In retrospect, she definitely had a lot of mental health issues, and was probably in no position to be a parent. Anyway, that left Jellybean and I with Dad, who - he’s an alcoholic, and a criminal, and when I was thirteen he got involved as part of the muscle in an illegal business deal with Hiram Lodge.”

Betty’s eyes widen with clear understanding, and Jughead nods.

“Yeah. Veronica’s father. That’s how I met Veronica - they got caught, and during all the legal proceedings the kids ended up hanging out a lot. She was the same age as me, so we became friends, and that sort of just … stuck.”

“It’s nice that you guys got each other out of that terrible ordeal, at least,” Betty murmurs gently, still stroking his hand.

“Yeah.” Jughead nods, finally manages to drag his eyes to meet hers, and turns his hand palm-up so that she can lace her fingers through his. “Anyway, afterward, we both got put into the foster system, and even though they try to keep siblings together it didn’t work out. She was a lot younger, a lot more - desirable sounds like the wrong word, but people want little kids, they don’t want angry teenagers. I was already getting into trouble at school then, too, and Jellybean got whisked away to a family somewhere and I lost track of her.”

“That’s terrible, Juggie,” Betty whispers, her eyes rimmed with tears again. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugs, his throat feeling uncomfortably tight. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I don’t - I hope she’s doing really good, and in school and getting ready to go to university and all that, but I don’t want to fool myself, either. I know the statistics.”

“You can’t get caught up in stats, Jug,” Betty presses, leaning even further across the table. The action is unintentionally enhancing her cleavage, but even that is not enough to distract him from his self-imposed misery. “You can’t. Look at you - you’re a successful writer, a damn good friend, and personally speaking, the best husband I’ve ever had.” Her tongue slips playfully to the corner of her mouth with the last item on her list, and it’s that that makes Jughead smile. “So there’s no reason to think your sister wouldn’t end up the same.”

“I’m the _only_ husband you’ve ever had,” he informs her.

Betty smiles, lifts their hands, and kisses the back of his. “And you were so good at it that I married you without even having to try.”

Jughead gives a slight laugh, scoots into the table, and traps her knees between his. “Thanks, Betty.”  
  


 

* * *

  
  
Betty’s life has taken an awful lot of turns lately: the fact that Archie was getting married was a big enough change in and of itself, but then she’d surprised herself by making a series of very unlike-Betty-Cooper decisions. The drunken Vegas wedding was one thing, but she’s just kept on surprising herself. She hooked up with Jughead again. She sent him a naked picture - X-rated bits covered, but still. She flirted with him via text until she could hardly concentrate on her work. She’s never acted like this before, but she’s also never had sex this good before. With each of her previous boyfriends, it was fine - she probably would’ve said _good_ , had anyone asked, but _fine_ was a more accurate descriptor. But it felt like Jughead lit her body on fire every time he touched her, and she wasn’t even mad at herself, anymore, for marrying him in an impulsive fit of intoxication - she just wanted _more_ of him.

Or she had, until things had taken yet another turn, and she found herself listening to him tell her, in a quiet voice, about his childhood, about his father’s criminal trial, about his beloved little sister who'd disappeared into the system. Her bare knees are pressed firmly against his denim-covered ones, and for the first time, touching him doesn’t have a sexual charge - she just wants him to know that she’s there, that she’s listening, that she’s sorry for everything that happened when he was too young to have a say in his fate or his sister’s.

“You’re a good listener,” Jughead says, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. They’ve finished their food, and two empty pint glasses sit on either side of the table.

She smiles at him. “What kind of wife would I be if I wasn’t?”

“The kind you marry after a relationship of about twenty minutes,” he jokes, but there is something very soft in his blue eyes, something that gives her butterflies in an entirely new way. “Guess I got lucky.”

“You _know_ you got lucky,” she teases him, lifting one eyebrow, but she squeezes his hand in return.

“I did, babe,” he agrees, his eyes dropping to her cleavage, and there it is, that lightning-bolt feeling that has her wondering just how clean the bar’s public washrooms are.

“Should we get the bill?” she asks, and he nods.

Jughead pays and shakes his head when she tries to hand him some cash. She opens her mouth to insist, but he gives her a look and says, “Come here.”

She gets up, and he does, too, sliding his arms around her in a hug. His nose presses into her hair; neither of his hands slip down to her ass. The way he’s holding her makes her heart hurt a little, and she wraps her arms around him tightly in return.

After a moment, she tips her head back to look at him. “Nothing has to happen tonight,” she says quietly.

Jughead nudges a very light kiss against her mouth. “I’m sorry I’m so morose.”

“It’s okay,” she says quickly and firmly, looking right into his eyes. She tiptoes up to kiss him in turn. “We said for better or for worse, right?”

“Did we?” he asks with a half-smile. “That part’s still a little fuzzy for me.”

“Let me come home with you,” she murmurs. “So you’re not alone.”

He rubs lightly at her back. “I’m usually alone, Betts,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Now you’re not,” she tells him. “Now you have me.”

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They walk back to his place with their hands clasped, not talking much. Betty looks upward, watching the sunlight fade and the city lights come on. The rain, thankfully, has stopped, and now the air is heavy with humidity.

Jughead’s apartment is about what she expected - it looks like it’s being inhabited by a disciple of Hemingway save for the absence of any bottles of liquor on the countertops. A coffeepot sits by the sink, waiting to be washed, and there is a single cactus on the kitchen windowsill. The bookshelves in the living room are packed full of paperbacks. Betty traces her fingers along the edge of his old Macbook and glances at the legal pad next to it, which is covered in haphazardly scribbled notes.

“This is where the magic happens, huh?” she asks.

He comes up behind her, resting his hands on her hips. The feeling of his breath on her neck makes her eyes flutter closed for an instant.

“I’ll show you where the magic happens,” he says in a low, teasing voice, and then scoops her up off her feet to carry her into his bedroom.

Betty lets out a small shriek, winding her arms around his neck instinctively. “Jughead!”

“What? It’s tradition, right?”

She can’t help but giggle. “On the _wedding night_.”

“I’m doing my best here, Betty,” he says, lowering her gently onto his navy blue duvet. He undoes the straps on her heels to take them off for her; she bites her bottom lip as she watches him set her shoes on the floor and then toe off his own before stretching out next to her on the bed.

She shifts onto her side so that she can look at him. “Hi,” she says softly.

“Hey,” he replies, reaching over to tuck her hair back behind her ear.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, undoing a couple buttons on his shirt. “It just… rattled me, I guess.”

“Understandably, Juggie.”

He runs his thumb along her bottom lip and says, quietly, “You’re so sweet. Who knew they were making such sweet, gorgeous girls upstate?”

“Stop,” she says lightly, pressing her lips together to keep from smiling.

“In real life, I’d never get to marry someone like you.”

Her desire to smile fades away as she studies his face and his dark, sad eyes. “This is real life, Jughead,” she whispers. She shifts closer to him and brushes a soft kiss against his mouth.

He kisses her back right away, his lips moving slowly with hers, his hand cupping her cheek. They kiss like that for a long time, unhurried and easy. He fits his hand into the curve of her waist, and Betty smoothes her hands along his chest. He makes a rough noise in his throat when she trails one hand down over his abdomen, and she unbuttons and unzips his jeans at the same slow pace that they’re kissing, like they have all the time in the world, smiling faintly against his mouth when his grasp on her waist tightens.

She strokes him lightly over his boxers, using just her fingertips at first before she wraps her hand around him, and he starts breathing a bit harder. When she finally frees him from his boxers and starts pumping her hand in a steady rhythm, he releases a drawn-out groan against her lips and she teases his tongue with her own. When she can tell he’s getting close, she nudges him onto his back and kneels between his legs, taking him into her mouth to finish him off. He slips his fingers into her hair, guiding the movement of her head, and she swallows when he comes.

Betty settles back onto the bed next to him as he breathes a satisfied sigh, curling up against his side. He wraps an arm around her, holding her close, and she slings an arm across his chest in turn. He presses a kiss into her hair and murmurs, “Thank you, baby,” and she cuddles up to him even more tightly, closing her eyes.

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She wakes from a nap around one in the morning to find that Jughead’s tucked a blanket around her legs. He’s still next to her in the bed, but he’s not asleep, his phone in one hand, its screen lit up.

“What time is it?” she murmurs through a dry mouth.

“Hey,” he says, locking his phone so that it goes dark and setting it aside before he turns toward her. “It’s the middle of the night. Did the light wake you?”

“No,” she sighs, nuzzling her face into his chest when he moves closer. “Why are you awake?”

“Trouble sleeping,” he says lightly, and she slips her arm, heavy from sleep, around him in a hug.

“It’s late?” she asks, after a long moment.

“Yeah,” he says, stroking her hair. “After midnight.”

“Crap,” she sighs. “I have to go home.”

“Is Caramel still waiting for her dinner?”

“No, but Arch and Veronica get back tonight, and she wants to have coffee tomorrow morning to _debrief_ , which probably involves telling me a lot of things about sex with Archie that I’d be content to never know.”

Jughead laughs; something about its soft, tired sound makes her _feel_ something, and she kisses his neck absently. “Skip it,” he says. “Cancel.”

“Cancel on _Veronica Lodge?_ ” Betty asks skeptically, pulling back just enough to look at his face.

He sighs. “Point taken.” After giving her a quick kiss, he says, “I’ll get you a Lyft.”

“Thanks,” she sighs, and heads into his washroom to splash a little cold water on her face.

As they wait for her car to arrive, Jughead pulls her close to him, his hands pressing into the small of her back. “Hey,” he says. “You tell Caramel I’m sorry I didn’t stop by tonight, but I’ll see her soon.”

Betty tilts her head. “You will?”

“If her owner with have me,” he says, kissing her so soundly that it leaves her a little breathless, her fingers clutching at his shoulders.

“I’ll have you,” she murmurs, as her ride beeps outside and his hands drop down to squeeze her ass playfully.

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Veronica arrives at Betty’s door at the absurdly early hour of 6:15 a.m., looking sun-kissed and bright-eyed, as if she didn’t get off a plane just hours before. She brings lattes and chocolate-filled croissants and countless photos of Cote d’Azur.

“It was magical,” she gushes. “Every minute of it.”

Betty gulps down her latte, smiling tiredly. “I’m glad, Veronica. You look really happy.”

“I am. Archie…” Veronica trails off, a dreamy look in her eyes. “There have been a lot of men in my life who said they’d treat me like a princess, but Archie just… treats me like a woman. A woman he loves. And Betty, the _sex_ \- ”

“Oh, god,” Betty says, cringing immediately. “Veronica, he’s like my _brother_.”

“I know, I know,” Veronica says with a wave of her hand. “You don’t want details, so I won’t give them to you, but _Betty_ , seriously - ” She grabs Betty’s hand with her own. “Marry a man who can _give_. And I don’t just mean once or twice. I mean all night. A full eight hours.”

Betty wrinkles her nose, and is saved from having to politely reply by the sound of her buzzer. She goes over to the intercom and asks, “Hello?”

“Delivery for Mrs. Cooper,” a staticky voice replies.

“It’s - ” _miss_ Betty almost says, and then she suddenly realizes who the delivery is likely from. “Come on up,” she says.

“Aren’t you popular this morning,” Veronica says from where she’s perched on one of Betty’s kitchen stools, her eyebrows arching upward.

“I guess I am,” she replies softly.

The delivery man who knocks on her door hands her a large bouquet of white, pink, and yellow lilies. Betty plucks out the card that came with them and reads its message: _In sorrow and in joy. - J._

Veronica is standing over her shoulder a moment later, reading the card, too. “J?” she asks. “J, as in - ” She gapes at Betty. “It looks like you already know what kind of man you want a marry, and he’s apparently a _total romantic_.” She takes the card right out of Betty’s hand and stares at it. Betty can’t even be upset about it; she’s too busy trying - and failing - to fight off the giant grin that’s threatening to take over her face.

When Veronica looks up again and sees her expression, her jaw drops. “ _What_ is going on with you and Jughead?” she demands. “Why is he quoting wedding vows to you on a card from a florist? I thought you were getting an annulment!” She huffs. “I leave the city for two weeks… ”

“I - I’m not sure what’s going on with us.” Off Veronica’s doubtful look, she adds, “Honestly,” and reaches into the cupboard above her stove, where she keeps a couple vases. “It’s… we _are_ getting the annulment. There was a little legal hiccup, but it’s in the works.”

“So, he’s sending you flowers, because… ?”

“Because we’re also… ”

“Fucking,” Veronica fills in. “You’re fucking.”

Betty can’t quite look at her, and concentrates all her attention on mixing the flower food in the vase. “Yes.”

“Oh my god,” Veronica says, giving her head a little shake. “Betty - I like you. I really do. You’re lovely, and you’re a total snack, and so I want to say that Jughead’s lucky and leave it at that but he’s… he’s my best friend. And the brooding _artiste_ thing - it’s not just all an act, he’s had things tough. I worry about him. I don’t want things to ever get tough for him again.”

Betty nods, abandoning the task of trimming flower stems for a moment. “I know,” she says quietly. “He told me - about his mom, about how you met, about his sister.”

Veronica’s eyes widen. “He told you about Jellybean?” she asks, her voice equally quiet and serious.

Again, Betty nods.

“That’s… ” Veronica rubs her lips together. “That’s bigger than sex. I don’t think he’s ever told a girlfriend about that.”

At that, Betty’s eyes go wide, too. “Really?”

“Mmhm.” Veronica seems to study her for a moment, and then adds, “I don’t want him to get hurt. I know he’s an adult, and you’re an adult, but if you don’t know what it is that you’re doing… that seems like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Betty says honestly. “It does. And it’s - none of this is _like_ me, but when I’m with him… ” She stares down at the flowers. “I mean, Veronica, that thing you said about a full eight hours - ”

“Ohmygod,” Veronica says in a horrified rush, covering her ears.

Betty smiles a little and lifts an eyebrow at her. “Not so fun when the shoe’s on the other foot, is it?”

“Touché, Betty Cooper,” Veronica says with a small smile of her own. It fades slowly, giving way to a more serious expression. “Just…be careful with his heart. Please.”

Betty nods soberly. Veronica has, after all, been very kind to _her_ best friend’s heart, and she understands the sentiment fully, the desire to protect the ones you love. She promises, “I will.”

 

 

tbc.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and for your comments! 
> 
> Just a quick note before you dive into this chapter: this fic's authors have a very, very cursory understanding of the law, and therefore do not make any claims that the legal processes in this fic reflect reality. In this universe, the law exists to serve the plot.

Jughead awakens to the sound of his phone ringing. Immediately, his eyes snap open, and he reaches for his phone. A call, in his experience, is never a good thing; it’s either some kind of government official with bad news, or a telemarketer who has somehow acquired his cell phone number. Typically, he’d ignore the ringing, but it’s first thing in the morning and with Jellybean so fresh in his mind, he can’t bring himself to do so.

He brings the phone down to his ear, staring at his bedroom as it’s shrouded in darkness from the blackout curtains he’d bought last year. “Hello?”

“Hey Jug,” comes the greeting, and _christ,_ it’s Veronica.

Jughead groans and rolls onto his side. “Ronnie, it’s the middle of the night.”

Veronica’s reply is tinged with amusement. “It’s almost ten o’clock in the morning.”

 _Oh._ Still; he’d been up late, and ten o’clock may as well be three, for how sleepy he feels. “And you assumed I’d be awake?” he sighs, rubbing his eyes. “What’s up, Ron?”

“No- _thing_ ,” Veronica sings. “Just wanted to check and see if you were tired from all the Romeo-ing you’ve apparently been doing.”

For the second time, his eyes snap open. He hasn’t been keeping Veronica in the loop with everything that’s been going on with Betty, partly because he doesn’t really understand it himself, and also because - well, it’s kind of private, and for as long as he and Veronica have been friends, an intimate discussion of his love life has never really come up. With every girlfriend, every date, he provided information at a high-level and only when asked; the idea of coming forth with a tidbit about how he’s started to casually sleep with his oops-wife and maybe-probably-definitely is also falling for her is ludicrous.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks.

Veronica makes an impatient huffing noise. “It means I was just at Betty’s telling her about the honeymoon - which was great, thank you for asking-”

“Was there a point in this conversation where you gave me the opportunity to do that?!”

She ignores him. “As I was _saying,_ I was at Betty’s and lo and behold, guess what shows up but _flowers,_ from one Jughead Jones. With a romantic note attached.”

The fucking flowers; of course they’d show up while Veronica was there. After she’d left in the Lyft, it had hit Jughead that Betty had stayed late at his apartment to spend extra time with him when she’d known that he was feeling a little off, so he’d wanted to do something nice for her, too. On a whim, he’d ordered the bouquet online, and paid extra for early morning delivery so that he could be assured that she would be home _and_ so that they’d come before Veronica did; she must have arrived at Betty’s quite early. He winces, knowing what time she’d gone home at, and says nothing.

Veronica continues, apparently not needing his participation to make a conversation. “And after some light badgering, what do I find out from the lovely Betty? That you’re _fucking.”_

Jughead is silent, and apparently, it’s all the secondary confirmation that Veronica needs.

 _“Jughead!”_ She’s essentially screeching now; he knows it’s a good thing they’re on the phone and not in person, because he has the distinct impression that she would be shaking him right about now. “What is up with you? Don’t get me wrong, I love Betty and support this and you guys would be super adorable together, but this is so unlike you.”

 _Tell me about it,_ he wants to say, but that sets a dangerous precedent, so instead Jughead tells her, “I don’t want to talk about this, Veronica.”

“I also know you told her about - about everything.” Veronica’s voice cracks slightly; he feels instantly bad. The whole ordeal had been just as bad for her as it had been for him, minus the involvement with the foster system, and he’s always tried to support Veronica in her coping just as much as she has done for him. “So I assume this is serious.”

Jughead sighs and drags himself to a seated position, figuring he’s not going back to sleep after this anyway. “I don’t know what it is,” he finally says, quiet and low, slightly afraid that if it comes out with any more volume that it won’t be real anymore. “But it’s … nice. Really, really nice. I’m … happy.”

“Okay,” Veronica breathes, “if that’s - if she’s giving you that, then hold onto it, Jug. You deserve that.”

He’s almost touched by the sincerity in her voice. “Thanks, Ron.”

“You’re welcome,” she says warmly. “I mean it. You’ve been through a bunch of bullshit and you deserve something good.” There’s rustling on her end of the line, then she adds, “Now, I don’t necessarily want _details,_ but tell me one thing: is the sex as good as Betty’s face tells me it is?”

He hangs up.

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The second time his phone rings, Jughead is nearly elbow-deep in soapy water.

“Fuck,” he grunts, lifting his hands out of the sink. A stream of water pours off of them, splashing into the over-filled basin and sloshing around.

Jughead drops his arms into the tea towel hanging from his oven handle, wipes them off, swears when he sees that he’s missed the call, then swears again when he realizes that the call had been from Betty.

He immediately presses ‘call back’, hops onto his counter, and stares at the full sink as it begins to ring. Betty had been over the night before, and while things had been okay during her visit and then afterward, he’d shuffled out of his bedroom post-Veronica wakeup with the sunlight streaming in and suddenly noticed just how dusty his apartment was. Feeling embarrassed, that had kickstarted a cleaning frenzy that eventually resulted in him re-washing all of the glasses in his cupboard after he noticed some water spots on two of them.

 _This is adulthood,_ Jughead realizes, worrying about water spots.

Betty picks up quickly. “Hi,” she says, sounding happy. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all,” he says, leaning his head against a cupboard. “I was just washing dishes and didn’t get to the phone in time. What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to say thank you for the flowers that showed up at my door this morning. They’re beautiful.” Her voice is like silk when she adds, “You did not need to do that.”

Picturing her sincere face is making him smile at nothing like an idiot, but he can’t bring himself to feel weird about it. “Ah, you’re welcome,” he replies. “It was nothing. Pressed a few keys on my phone.”

“Well, it was really sweet.” She clears her throat. “So I, um, I wanted to give you something sweet in return.”

Jughead raises an eyebrow and hops off his counter. “I can’t tell if that’s about food or sex, and … I just realized I don’t know which one I want it to be more.”

Betty giggles. “It’s food, Juggie,” she answers. “But you know, there might be some of the _other_ on the table if you come over.”

“Oh really?” He grins, already reaching into his sink to drain the water that’s pooled there, then heading to the foyer to put his shoes on. “Making me work for it, aren’t you?”

“Well, you did promise Caramel that you’d see her soon,” Betty teases. “And you don’t want to disappoint her. She holds a grudge.”

Jughead laughs. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

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He’s there in fifteen.

“Hey you,” Jughead greets, sliding his arms around Betty’s waist as soon as she opens the door. She’s wearing an oversized flannel shirt that looks suspiciously like one of his - just how she got it, he’s not entirely sure - and a pair of sinfully short terrycloth shorts.

Betty kisses him soundly. “Hi,” she breathes as she pulls back. Her hands rest on his chest, fingertips pressing lightly. “You made good time.”

Jughead’s hands, acting almost on their own accord, slide down to find her ass. “I was motivated,” he murmurs, ducking his head to press a kiss behind her ear. He squeezes gently, the pads of his fingers brushing against the soft skin at the back of her thighs. She gives a sigh, so soft that he barely hears it, and a slow grin spreads across his face. He clears his throat and asks, loudly, “So where’s Caramel?”

Betty’s jaw drops and she shoves his arm playfully. “Jug!”

He grins, swings her back into his arms, and kisses her again. This time, he deepens it almost immediately, and they end up making out in the doorway of her apartment for a few minutes before he walks them a bit further in and closes the door. He squeezes her breast through her shirt affectionately and drops his mouth to her neck, only stopping when he catches a glimpse of a large bouquet of flowers out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh wow, those really are nice,” he comments, pulling back. “Turns out two-AM me has good taste.”

“Well, I already knew that,” Betty teases, slipping out of his arms. “That’s what time you married _me_.”

Jughead chuckles. “Oh yeah, that’s right.”

He follows Betty into the kitchen, where she procures a plate of chocolate chip cookies from inside the microwave. He raises his eyebrow at the odd storage space, to which Betty states, “The microwave is a cat-safe space.”

“Ah, makes sense.” He selects one and takes a quick bite. It breaks apart, soft and sweet, and is immediately the best cookie he’s ever had. “Betty, this is fucking incredible.”

She smiles. “Thanks. Family recipe.” She puts the plate back in the microwave. “They’re in the Caramel-free zone when you want more.”

“I’ll definitely want more,” Jughead says with a full mouth, already walking over to grab another. “You didn’t need to make them for me, but I’ll never turn down a cookie.”

Betty steps over to the living area and hovers near her sofa. “Yeah, the way to your heart is pretty clear,” she jokes.

Jughead lets his eyes linger on her ass as she bends slightly to pick up her TV remote. “It’s true that my stomach is a good entrance point,” he concedes. “But I think you might be the master of some other ways, too.”

She glances over at him, notices his fixation, and then bites her lip. Her eyes are suddenly more heavily lidded than before. He’s waited his entire life for a girl like her to look at him that way; he’s fucking powerless, and he hopes she knows it.

“Don’t look at me that way, babe,” he says. “Not if you want to keep your clothes on.”

Betty gives him a half-smile that borders on shyness, then sits down on the couch and stretches her legs out on the coffee table, seemingly fully aware of Jughead staring at them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says lightly, her voice full of feigned innocence. “I’m not looking at you in any type of way.”

“Uh huh,” he dismisses, sinking down beside her and stretching his arm along the back of the couch. “And I’m not daydreaming about fucking you into the cushions of this sofa.” Caramel hops up beside him, winds her way into a semi-circle, then settles down and begins to purr; it makes Jughead chuckle, and he adds, “Caramel agrees.”

“I’m allowed to ogle my husband if I want.”

Betty leans into him a little, which makes Jughead’s stomach do an annoying flippy-thing, a repetitive movement that seems to be happening lately and with more frequency than he’d like to admit. He shifts to the side a little so that he can face her more easily, his knees angled slightly toward her, and then presses a soft kiss to her mouth.

Betty is smiling when he pulls back, but there’s a uncertain look in her eyes. “I wanted to talk to you about something,” she says.

For a moment, his blood runs cold, but he catches himself halfway down his internal spiral; she wouldn’t have invited him over and kissed him if she was going to end this, whatever _this_ is. _Right?_

Still, he exhales and straightens up a little. “Anything.”

She looks almost sheepish as she begins. “So like I was saying yesterday, Veronica came over, and-”

“She called me,” Jughead interrupts. “I know she saw the flowers and I know that she knows about … us. She called me when she left your place. With no respect for my sleep schedule,” he adds with mild indignation.

Betty laughs softly. “So you’re not upset that she knows?”

He shrugs. “No. It was bound to come out at some point. As long as she doesn’t get too nosy - which is in her DNA, a hundred per cent - then I’m fine with it.” He reaches out with his hand and brushes a stray lock of hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. “Are you okay? I know she can be a bit much sometimes.”

“It was fine until she started telling me about sex with Archie,” Betty shudders. “But yeah, I’m … I’m good with it too. I…”

She trails off, and Jughead waits patiently for her to continue, but after a few moments Betty folds her hands on her lap and he realizes that she’s not going to.

Jughead leans in and kisses her again, his hand dropping to her shoulder and then trailing to her collarbone, where he begins to flick open the buttons on her - his? - shirt. “Let’s watch a movie,” he murmurs against her lips. “Dealer’s choice.”

Betty breaks the kiss, giggling at the immediate and new movement of his lips beneath her ear. “Okay,” she agrees, and although he’s too preoccupied with uncovering the skin beneath her flannel to pick out what it is, she apparently manages to set _something_ to play.

Sound moves behind him, but Jughead couldn’t care less; he has discovered that not only is Betty not wearing an undershirt, but she’s got on some kind of lacy _thing_ that is not doing much to contain her breasts.

He sits back and looks at her accusingly. “You wore this to tease me.”

Betty bites her lip and glances down at her open flannel shirt and exposed undergarment. “It’s a bralette,” she says, “you liked my other lingerie before, so I figured I’d show you what else I have in my arsenal.”

“Your _arsenal,_ ” Jughead repeats. He runs a hand through his hair. “You’re going to kill me, Cooper.”

Betty shrugs. “If you’re not interested, that’s fine,” she says innocently, reaching for the hem of her shirt and making a move to redo the buttons.

He practically dives on her, pushing her hands away and silencing her giggles with his mouth. He slips one hand inside her bralette immediately, pushing the flimsy fabric to the side. He teases her nipple with his thumb, gently at first and then pinching it with his forefinger. Betty whines and bucks her hips at him in response; Jughead thrusts against her as she does so, takes advantage of her gasp to break the kiss, and then moves his lips down her throat to her breasts.

Her hands press against his shoulders. He pulls back. “Hang on, hang on,” Betty chants, shrugging the flannel off and then reaching behind herself to unclasp her bra. She shakes it free a moment later, then crawls back toward Jughead and climbs onto his lap.

Jughead stares at her, topless and writhing on his lap, and slides his palms up her back. “I have the hottest wife,” he declares, placing his lips against her throat. He sucks what he hopes is a noticeable hickey just left of the hollow, then trails kisses to her collarbone and bites gently down on the soft skin.

“Juggie,” Betty says, urgency in her voice. Her hands are clawing at his shirt, so he lifts his head for a moment to allow her to pull his shirt off. Once it’s gone, he moves to kiss her again, but Betty places a hand on his chest to stall him. He’s confused for a moment until he realizes that now _she’s_ staring.

“Like what you see?” he teases, flexing one of his biceps. It’s more a joke than anything; he’s not built, not like Archie or any of the guys that she has known for years. He’s always been on the skinny side, despite efforts to bulk up, and he simply can’t be bothered to spend hours in the gym. It’s not in his nature, and even with Archie around, he’s never really felt like his musculature was inadequate, although also not quite _good_ either.

But right now, as Betty licks her lips and stares down at him, he feels extraordinary.

“I have the hottest husband,” she shoots back, a glint of mirth in her green eyes.

And with that, _something_ comes over him, another new feeling that appears only with Betty, and only in this context. He makes eye contact, settles his hands back on her waist, and his mind is filled with one word only: _mine._

He grips her hips and moves Betty off of him suddenly, setting her on the couch beside him, then stands up. She rises too, likely on instinct, he thinks, and only gets out, “What’s wr-” before the rest of the word is turned into a squeal as he lifts her over his shoulder.

“You’re not naked enough,” he says matter-of-factly, marching them down the hallway to her bedroom. He deposits her on the bed with slightly less care than he would normally give, watches her breasts bounce with the landing, and begins to unbutton his jeans. “Take your clothes off.”

Betty says nothing, chest moving rapidly with surprised breath, but her eyes are dark and excited.

“Take your clothes off,” Jughead repeats, piling his socks on top of his jeans and then slipping off his boxers.

She obeys, lifting her hips and ridding herself of her shorts and panties in one movement, then reaches to her bedside table and grabs a condom. “We’re going to miss the movie,” she says breathlessly, her eyes following him as he kneels on the bed.

He settles between her legs and hooks one knee over his shoulder. The delicate skin of her inner thigh is soft against his cheek. “We’ll restart it,” he promises, then lowers his mouth to her.

(They restart it four times.).

 

* * *

 

Betty stretches a hand toward the other side of her bed when she wakes in the morning, but she finds something crinkly beneath her fingers rather than encountering Jughead’s warm skin. She opens her eyes, squinting a bit, and sees that there’s a sheet of plain white printer-paper on the mattress. She picks it up and reads the words scribbled on it in a slightly messy hand that she’s beginning to recognize as belonging to Jughead.

 _Morning, gorgeous._  
_Ridiculously early meeting with my editor, had to run._  
_Made you coffee. Hopefully it’s not too strong. Also fed Caramel - one cup of kibble, right? (Kidding, I gave her half.)_  
_Have a good one,_  
_Your lawfully wedded husband._  
_P. S. We use the same toothpaste._  
_P. P. S. I took a cookie for the road._

She smiles to herself and sets the paper down on her bedside table as Caramel hops up onto the bed, already purring in anticipation of being petted. The cat settles herself on Betty’s chest, eyes half-closed in contentment.

“You must like Jughead, huh?” Betty murmurs, giving Caramel’s neck a thorough scratch. “He keeps feeding you. You guys are similar that way, you know - there is a very obvious path to your hearts, and it starts right here.” She gives Caramel’s slightly-rotund belly a little pat, and the cat opens one eye to express her disapproval.

Betty indulges Caramel with cuddles for another ten minutes or so, and then gently shifts the cat off of her so that she can get up, but she pauses once she’s slid her legs over the side of the bed, her toes brushing against the floor. She feels satisfied this morning, she can’t deny that, but she also feels a little disappointed in herself. She wanted to have a conversation with Jughead about their feelings - or at least, about her feelings, which are slowly but surely shifting. She _likes_ Jughead, and she’s having trouble ignoring just how strikingly compatible they seem for two quasi-strangers who got married on a drunken whim. She likes talking to him, discovering all the things he knows so much about. She likes the way he makes her feel, confident and desirable. She likes the warm rush of affection she feels when they find themselves laughing at something together, or when he looks at her out of the corner of his eye, or when she can feel him smiling against her skin.

She has a crush on her husband. A big one. And she wants to talk about it - she thinks they _should_ talk about it. She’s a big talker, a stubborn communicator; growing up in a family where so much was left unsaid turned her into a person who will face uncomfortable truths head on and pull secrets out of shadows. No matter how terrifying it might be to realize she might have feelings for the man she married, she knows it won’t do them any good, do _her_ any good, to ignore those feelings.

He just makes her so _nervous_. And when he _touches_ her - it’s like her mind blanks and her body takes over, and her mouth would so much rather kiss his than awkwardly stumble through a confession.

She picks up her phone and contemplates calling Kevin to try and hash all of this out, but it’s still very early on the west coast, so she decides against it; she’s not sure exactly what she’d say, anyway. She follows the smell of freshly-brewed coffee to the kitchen, and finds a full pot waiting for her. Next to the coffeemaker is a small brown paper bag. She peeks inside and finds that it’s a cherry danish from the bakery two blocks over.

 _ **Thanks for the danish,**_ she texts Jughead, and then sets her phone down, pouring coffee into a mug and then going to her fridge to get creamer.

By the time she’s finished stirring in cream and sugar, he’s texted her back: _**Thanks for last night.**_

She leans a hip against the countertop and takes a sip from her mug. _**You’re very smooth this morning, Jones.**_

_***Cooper.** _

Betty smiles. _**Are you going to publish your novel under that name?**_

 _ **Yes,**_ he replies right away. _**With a dedication to my lovely bride.**_

Her cheeks feel faintly warm. There’s no question about it, really - she’s into him. She’s into her husband, who will soon no longer _be_ her husband.

She sighs and bites into the danish, wondering just how she got to this point as she chews.

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Three days later, Betty settles into a leather chair in the waiting room of Sterling, Mayfair, and Grouse, the law firm she’s been communicating with regarding the annulment. Jughead arrives shortly after she does, exactly one minute before their allotted appointment time, wearing a blazer along with a button-down and khakis.

“You look nice,” Betty says as she gets up to greet him, kissing the corner of his mouth. She examines his face for a beat and adds, “And nervous.” For half a second, she wonders if he’s also wishing they had the how-do-we-feel-about-each-other conversation before this moment.

But then he tugs lightly at the collar of his shirt and says, “I don’t really like lawyers.”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, Jughead, I’m sorry, how stupid of me - ”

“Hey, no, it’s fine,” he says, putting a hand on her forearm. “It’s okay. I don’t _like_ lawyers, but I can be around them. And this isn’t just your thing to deal with; it’s mine, too.”

“Still,” she says quietly.

“I’m good, Betts,” he promises, sliding his arm around her. He presses a kiss to her temple.

“Miss Cooper? Mr. Jones?” an assistant asks, smiling politely at them. “Mr. Cairns will see you now.”

They follow the assistant back into a glass-walled office, where the middle-aged lawyer greets them both with handshakes and invites them to sit down.

“Well, I have good news,” he says brightly. “It looks like the occasion - the Las Vegas bachelor party - along with your reported levels of intoxication, are enough to move this through, since you’re both in agreement that you want the annulment to take place.” Mr. Cairns smiles and jokes, “I’d advise both of you not to do this again, as a second annulment likely won’t be easy to procure.”

“I don’t think either of us have any plans to get impulsively married again,” Betty says quietly, her voice a touch wry as she smiles at the lawyer.

Jughead runs his hands along his thighs, as though his palms are sweaty. “So… we’ve got it, then? Our marriage is annulled?”

“Nearly. We’ll just need a judge to rule on it, but I don’t foresee any problems there.”

“Good,” Betty says on a sigh of relief; during her initial phone call with Mr. Cairns, he’d cheerfully told her that they could get a divorce if an annulment wasn’t granted, and she’d _felt_ herself blanche.

“Yeah,” Jughead says. She glances over at him, but his eyes are fixed on the lawyer’s mahogany desk. “That’s great.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Cairns say. “How’s Tuesday?”

Betty blinks. “This _coming_ Tuesday?”

“The one and only.”

“Oh. I - I didn’t bring my planner,” she says slowly. “I didn’t realize… ” She turns to Jughead again, and this time he’s looking back at her, surprise evident in his expression.

“You can always call my secretary to schedule a time and date, once you’ve had a chance to review your own plans,” Mr. Cairns suggests.

“Yes,” Betty says. “Yes, that sounds good. We should do that. Right?” she asks Jughead.

He nods. “Sounds easy enough.”

“Wonderful.” Mr. Cairns opens a drawer, pulls out two small stacks of paper held together by clips, and hands one to each of them. “The documentation that we’ll file,” he explains. “A couple more signatures needed from you both, a quick appearance in court - five or ten minutes, I’d imagine - and then your marriage will be declared void.”

Betty stares down at the papers in her hands, feeling weirdly startled. This was what she’d wanted - this was why she’d _hired_ a lawyer and paid his exorbitant hourly rate - and yet, now that she has it, she doesn’t feel like she thought she would. There’s a bit of relief, because she definitely didn’t want to get a very real divorce after what essentially felt like an unreal marriage, but she also expected to feel some kind of liberation. Instead, the main thing she's feeling is a heavy sense of unpreparedness, like getting out of this marriage, just like getting into it, is happening much too quickly.

“Thank you,” Jughead says, and she suddenly realizes that he’s getting up from his chair.

“Yes, thank you,” she adds quickly, rising as well and giving Mr. Cairns’ hand another shake before they exit the office.

They’re quiet in the elevator ride back down to the building’s first floor. Betty examines her shoes against the elevator’s tiled floor; she feels strange, like she used to in moments of anxiety, like she’s having some kind of out-of-body experience.

It’s not until they step out of the building that Jughead exhales, long and slow, and says, “So how much are you paying him for that meeting, the contents of which definitely could’ve been covered in a five-minute phone call?”

Betty takes a deep breath of her own, and the ground starts to feel sturdy and steady beneath her feet once again. “Not that much,” she says with a little shrug.

“Betty.”

“Really, it’s not that bad,” she insists. “And we only had one other phone meeting, so… overall, it’s not terrible.”

They slow to a stop at a red light, and Jughead turns to face her. “Let me foot half the bill.”

“Jug, no,” she says. “You don’t have to - ”

“He’s my lawyer, too, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she concedes. “But I don’t even know that I really needed to hire him, I just panicked a little when I realized that getting an annulment might be a challenge, and I didn’t want for us to have to get _divorced_. It was my decision; I didn’t even consult you first.”

“Only because you were doing all the work,” Jughead points out.

“I’ve always been that way,” she says softly. The light turns, so they start to make their way across the street, and she finds that she’s glad that he has to pay attention to where he’s going rather than being able to scrutinize her face. “Always took over group projects in school.”

A little smile quirks at Jughead’s lips, but he says, “Betty, seriously. Tell me what the bill ends up being, and I’ll pay my share.”

“I really don’t think that’s fair,” she says stubbornly. “You bought my rings.”

His brows furrow as he looks over at her. “What?”

“My… wedding rings,” she says. “They weren’t on my credit card statement - only a men’s sterling silver wedding band. If I bought your ring, you must have bought mine. And I imagine they were more expensive.”

“All that means is that I contributed financially to getting us married,” he reasons. “Let me contribute to getting us out of it.”

She sighs. “Look, I brought my rings - you should have them back, since you bought them. You can resell them, and whatever money you get, you can contribute that to the legal fees, if you want.”

“Betts...” he says on a soft sigh.

She lifts her chin. “It’s my final offer, Juggie.”

He shakes his head and breathes a laugh. “You drive a hard bargain, Betty Cooper. You’re right, we _didn’t_ need a lawyer - I’m sure you could’ve persuaded a judge.” He slides his arm around her waist, his hand settling against her hip comfortably, and steers her away from the stairs that lead down to the subway. “At _least_ say you’ll let me buy you celebratory dinner. It’s not every day a man gets an annulment.”

“We technically don’t have it yet,” she points out, arching a brow slightly as she looks at him.

“So no steak, then,” he jokes. He nods toward a sign on the next block. “Pizza?”

Betty presses a hand to his cheek, feeling a bit of stubble beneath her fingers. “One last supper with my beloved husband,” she teases, pushing the remnants of her earlier anxiety to the back of her mind.

Jughead turns his head and kisses her fingers. “Oh, my darling,” he says, matching her tone, but there is something gruff deep in his voice, something intense in his eyes. “Whatever shall we have for dessert?”

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Betty heads home from Jughead’s place when the night is still fairly young. She tells him that she needs to feed Caramel, which is true - her cat greets her with indignant meows and leads her straight to the cupboard where the kibble is kept - but she also needs some time to think. The papers from the lawyer are tucked into her purse, and there is a small, rebellious, _ludicrous_ \- but insistent - part of her that wonders if she even wants to sign them.

Once Caramel’s fed, Betty goes into her room and flops down onto her bed. She opens up her contacts on her phone, goes to her favourites, and presses the only name there besides her sister’s.

“Hey, Betts,” Archie answers. “What’s up?”

“Not too much,” she says. “How are you? Are you done teaching for the day?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I have this one student who clearly practiced so hard while I was away - I’m so proud of him. He’s going to be a better guitarist than me soon, I swear.”

“That’s awesome, Arch. Are you still writing with Veronica’s friend?”

“Josie? Yeah, I’ve got something in the works for the Pussycats right now, actually.” There’s a brief pause, and then he asks, “What’s going on, Betty?”

“What do you mean, what’s going on?”

“Whenever there’s something you need to talk about, you start off by asking me about my job or my songwriting. It’s like… if you keep me talking for long enough, we don’t have to talk about your thing.”

“That’s not true,” she murmurs, though it is, entirely.

“Uh-huh.”

She sighs. “Are you alone?”

Archie’s smile is audible in his voice as he says, “Ronnie’s in another room, if that’s what you’re asking. Spill, Betty.”

She heaves another sigh and then tells him, “We went to see a lawyer today. Jughead and I.”

“And?”

“And… everything’s good to go. We should be able to get the annulment. We just have to book a court date, but the lawyer says it’ll be really brief.”

“That’s great,” Archie says. “Right?”

“It is,” she agrees. “It is. I just… ”

He waits a moment for her to finish her sentence, and when she doesn’t, he supplies, “You just feel weird about it because the two of you are still fooling around?”

Betty closes her eyes. “Veronica told you.”

“I mean, yeah, Betts, she’s my _wife_. But I also already knew. You two were kind of obvious at the wedding.”

She presses a hand over her eyes. “God, Archie, what am I _doing_?”

“I don’t know,” he says, not unkindly. “Do you… like him? Jughead?”

“Maybe,” she says quietly.

“That’s good,” Archie says. “Isn’t it? He seems like a good guy; Ronnie loves him. And you’ve both been handling this marriage thing well together.”

“Yeah,” she says. “It just feels… really strange, to sign annulment papers right now. It feels like saying goodbye, like saying it’s over.”

“And you don’t want it to be,” Archie says slowly. “Betty - Betts, do you want to _stay married_ to him?”

“No,” she says immediately. “No, that would be crazy. Right? It would be totally crazy; we _barely_ know each other, and the fact that we can even _get_ an annulment means that our marriage barely counts for anything, anyway. I don’t want to… stay married to him.”

“I don’t know,” Archie says, his words still slow. “I mean, they say love is crazy. And marriage is… awesome. Veronica and I are so happy. Our honeymoon was amazing.”

“You dated, Archie. You had an engagement. You went about this in a normal way.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to.”

“Are you seriously encouraging me _not_ to annul my drunk wedding?” Betty asks.

“No. No, you’re right that it’s crazy, I’m just saying that… maybe crazy’s not always a bad thing.”

“In this case, I’m pretty sure it is. I can’t stay married to him. I just feel really weird about… ending something when it feels like it could just be the beginning.”

“Have you told him that?” Archie asks gently.

“ _No_ , Arch,” Betty huffs. “Because, like we just agreed, it’s _crazy._ ”

“I don’t remember agreeing,” he teases, and she can imagine his playful smile and raised brows perfectly. “Oh - hang on.” With his voice further away, the phone’s speaker moved away from his mouth, he says, “Yeah.” There’s the murmur of another voice, and then he says, “Uh… no. No, we’re not talking about - okay.”

Right into the phone, Archie says, “Veronica wants to meet you for drinks on Friday.”

Betty groans. “Archie, your poker face is _terrible_.”

Only slightly contrite, he adds, “She’s gonna text you the details.”

“Tell her,” Betty says, holding in a sigh, “that I can’t wait.”

 

 

 

tbc.


	8. Chapter 8

He’s out on a run when he gets the call.

Running is not something that comes naturally to Jughead. He’s never been traditionally athletic, having instead lucked into a fast metabolism and a naturally lean frame, but as he’s gotten older he has attempted to begin exercising with some degree of regularity. Whether successful or not, it’s an effort made, he supposes.

Those efforts have definitely increased since meeting Betty. There’s something partly intimidating about her, physically speaking, and he thinks that perhaps it’s the clear results of exercise that her body displays which has lent to this new insecurity. Jughead isn’t self-conscious of his body - Betty, at least, seems to like it just fine - but at the same time, he figures that exercise can’t _hurt._ A healthy heart, and all that; and if at the same time the girl he has a thing for and is kind of _with_ ends up finding him more attractive, too, then - well, so be it.

He’s lucky, as far as running goes, not only because he’s got good knees but because Brooklyn is overflowing with excellent parks and other places to run. There’s the seawall, of course, but lately he’s been particular to Prospect Park. The lake is great, the paths are well-maintained, and the people-watching is excellent. Jughead has really come to rely on the latter as a method of entertainment during what is otherwise a fairly dull exercise (but free, which makes it the best in his book).

Besides, it’s giving him time to think; not just about exercise and life in general, but about Betty and his dad, about what he wants, and about what he needs.

He hasn’t seen Betty in a few days, not since they’d hung out after meeting with a lawyer, who had told them essentially that _no problem, you can get an annulment, does next week work?_ , which is great, because the annulment _is_ what they’d been aiming for, so he’s happy.

(Kind of.)

It’s definitely what he wants.

(Maybe.)

In the end, Jughead supposes, it doesn’t actually matter what one person in a marriage of two prefers; both people need to commit to working together. Both need to _want_ each other. And while he’s fallen down a much deeper emotional rabbit hole with Betty than he’s ever experienced with any other girl, he’s not sure that the way he wants her (all the ways, forever) is quite the same as what she wants from him. He’s not in the business of deluding himself into happiness; it’s true that he may not know Betty very well, but he doesn’t get the vibe that he’s the type of guy she usually goes for. Fun for a good time, not a long time, as it were. And he’s … not exactly okay with that, but he can accept it.

(He’ll _be_ okay with it. Eventually.)

After all, what he _needs_ is someone who _wants_ him. And admittedly, there have been times over the last few weeks where Jughead thinks maybe that person _is_ Betty. She looks at him a lot, that much he notices; she’s caring, especially when he’s been experiencing family-related angst; and she seems to smile a lot when they’re together. Jughead gets the sense that she does that a lot no matter who she’s with, but these smiles are genuine and warm, and they reach her eyes. That wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t something about him that she liked, something other than their obvious sexual compatibility.

But then, there is the darkness.

Somewhere inside him, not deep-down but definitely simmering beneath the surface, like an underground river, are Jughead’s insecurities. He’s been dealing with them all his life, ever since his lone kindergarten friend told him that his mom didn’t want him to play with the ‘dirty kid’ anymore. His mother’s rejection, made clear by her abandonment of the family, had not helped matters, and by the time that he was fourteen and bouncing between foster homes, it had become pretty obvious to Jughead that people wanting him was probably not something that he should count on.

It’s these insecurities, despite every effort that he makes to consciously steer clear of them, that bring him down. He knows that it’s self-sabotaging, not to bolster his own confidence and learn to overcome his abandonment issues, but when again and again they’re proven right, Jughead thinks, maybe _they’re_ his closest ally. Like now: if Betty wanted something more than just a casual relationship from him, surely she would have made some sort of indication.

_Anything._

He’s just winding his way around past the zoo, his eyes falling upon the nearby carousel, when his music is interrupted by the ringing of an incoming call.

Jughead checks the caller ID before answering. Veronica. He sighs and slows to a walk. “Hi Ronnie. Look, I’m just in the middle of a run, can I-”

 _“Jughead.”_ He’s interrupted by Veronica’s voice, urgent and loud, over the line. “You need to get to New York Presbyterian, as soon as possible.”

He stops, the hair on the back of his neck standing up despite the sweat that overlays it. “What?! What happened? Are you okay?”

“It’s Betty. She’s been in an accident.”

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The forty minutes that follow are among the longest of his life. They’re right up there with the six hours of jury deliberation that preceded his father’s conviction and with the fifteen minutes that come directly before every one of his sentencing or parole hearings that Jughead’s ever attended.

These minutes in particular are spent in a cab, tapping his fingers impatiently against his knee and obsessively checking his phone for any news from Veronica. As soon as she’d blurted out the news, a strange kind of tinnitus blocked out all sound; then moments later, through the ringing, Jughead caught small bits of detail.

Veronica and Betty had apparently been out for happy-hour drinks (part of Veronica’s multi-step plan to make Betty her new best friend, Jughead thinks, which he casually supports), and after they were finished, upon parting, Betty had hopped into a cab to go home while Veronica waited for her father’s town car to arrive. She’d then watched as Betty’s cab driver made an overly ambitious left turn and promptly collided with a quickly-speeding oncoming vehicle.

By Veronica’s account, the ambulance had come quickly, but Betty had been unconscious inside the back of the cab and there was, as Veronica had put it, “a lot of blood”. The paramedics had said they’d be bringing her to New York Presbyterian Hospital, but upon Veronica’s arrival there, “nobody in the goddamn fucking place” would divulge any information about Betty, her condition, or even her whereabouts within the hospital. She’d phoned Archie immediately, of course, but he too had been unable to learn anything.

Jughead stares out the window as he recalls Veronica’s words.

(“And then, it dawned on me - you’re _married,_ they have to tell _you_ something.”)

Of all the unexpected things that have come as a result of his accidental marriage, the last thing that Jughead thought he’d need to do is use their marital status as a way to gain access to information about Betty’s medical state. Veronica hadn’t made it seem like Betty’s life was in danger, but that isn’t much comfort to Jughead. There is still a myriad of options that are running through his head: internal injuries, life-altering fractures, a traumatic brain injury-

The buzzing of Jughead’s cell phone interrupts his reverie. His eyes snap down to it immediately; he’s surprised to see that the text is from Archie.

**_You almost here? Veronica tried to bribe one of the nurses for info and almost got arrested._ **

Jughead smiles despite the swirling mix of emotions that are deluging him. He could always count on Veronica to go the extra mile.  ** _Five more minutes,_** Jughead replies. _**Try and distract her with something shiny?**_

His attempt at humour, he knows, is ill-placed and half-hearted, but Archie’s reply of _**hahaha**_ seems like reward enough, and Jughead resumes his previous occupation of impatiently fidgeting with a hole in his shorts until finally, six minutes later, the cab pulls up near the emergency doors of New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Jughead pushes bills at the cab driver - definitely too much, but he doesn’t have time to waste with counting - and then hops out, beginning a tear toward the main doors whilst simultaneously texting Veronica that he’s arrived.

She finds him before he can find her, appearing as if out of nowhere and marching him down several hallways and ultimately toward the main floor’s information desk, where a harried-looking Archie is standing off to the side, tapping his foot.

“Okay,” Veronica declares, practically shoving Jughead at the desk, “pull that husband card.”

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To his surprise, the whole ‘husband card’ process was not only remarkably easy but also completely unregulated, at least at the outset (Jughead imagines - hopes - that there would be some kind of accountability later on if a false claim was made), so much so that he briefly wonders why Archie or Veronica didn’t attempt to claim a spousal relationship. Betty wouldn’t have minded, likely, but he supposes that if she were conscious, none of this would have been an issue altogether.

Because she’s not - conscious, that is, although the medical resident that spoke to him did indicate that there was low risk and only limited concern about that fact. Her reawakening was apparently expected imminently, but she’d been taken into surgery to affix plates into what is apparently a very broken - _shattered,_ the doctor had said - arm, and as such was now expected to come to post-anaesthesia anytime within the next hour. Jughead had been given a stack of paperwork to complete, only some of which he was confident about; thankfully, with the assistance of Archie, they’re able to get the bulk of the information filled in.

And so now, they wait.

None of them have seen her yet, because Betty is allegedly just in recovery briefly, but Jughead has been assured that he can expect to see his wife very soon. He’s a lot less measured about receiving that news than he’d thought he’d be, having raised his voice at the doctor and scared a nurse half to death when the doctor informed him that the surgery had gone ‘as planned except for a concerning dip in her blood pressure for a period of time’.

_(What does that mean, how does that affect her, is she still going to be okay, what do you mean it’s nothing to worry about, why bother bringing it up if it’s nothing to worry about-)_

A cup of coffee had then been pressed into his hands by Veronica, who then thanked the doctor and steadily guided both him and an equally-irate Archie into worn cloth-covered chairs. They’re still in the chairs now, although the coffee is gone - a nice parallel to his patience, he thinks, and a testament to how utterly boring the hospital waiting room is that the leftover grounds at the bottom of a styrofoam cup are what draws his attention.

Veronica is standing by the window, arms folded, occasionally pacing up and down the aisle in front of where he and Archie are sitting. “She’s going to be fine,” she says, seemingly more to herself than anyone else. “You heard the doctor.”

“Betty is a fighter,” Archie agrees. “She’s not going to like the lack of use of her arm for a while, though.”

That makes Jughead smile a little; Betty definitely has an independent streak, for sure. He’s witnessed it on multiple occasions, from her refusal to ask him for help when height-challenged to her general stubbornness to what he recalls hazily as her initial instinct to be responsible for her own orgasm (although the latter, he thinks, might be attributed more to poor sexual experiences than anything else).

“I can already see the annoyed slowly-typed text messages now,” Jughead chuckles.

Archie glances over at him. “She broke her ankle in tenth grade and refused to let me carry her books for her even though she had crutches. This is going to be so much worse. Hair-washing, and all that, at least at the start when she’ll be all sore.”

“I’m sure Jughead can help with that,” Veronica suggests with a sly smile, giving him a very obvious wink. “I’m going to go see if I can get flowers anywhere in this place. If I’m not back, text me when you get in to see her and I’ll run back!” She waggles her fingers at them in farewell and departs in the manner that only Veronica Lodge can: defiantly, with clacking heels and unmoved shoulders.

Jughead shakes his head at her retreating back, feeling suddenly awkward at the mention of his sexual relationship with Betty in front of Archie, her male best friend of forever-many-years. He doesn’t like to hear about Veronica’s sex life, and he’s pretty sure that Archie doesn’t want information on Betty’s, no matter how well he and Archie have gotten along since his first appearance on Veronica’s scene.

“She likes you a lot, you know,” Archie says suddenly.

“We were forced together by circumstances,” Jughead replies wryly, “and now Veronica is stuck with me. I don’t know if that means she _likes_ me, more that she’s come to accept-”

“Not Ronnie,” he interrupts. “Betty. Betty likes you a lot. I can tell.”

Jughead looks down at his hands. “What makes you say that?”

Archie shrugs. “Best friend intuition. I dunno. She seems a lot lighter when you’re around.”

“Lighter?”

“Less … burdened.” Archie clears his throat. “Betty … doesn’t do a lot of things for herself. She spends a _lot_ of time thinking about other people, and even more time inside her own head. This drunk-Vegas thing you guys did was the first time in years that I’ve seen her really let go and just do what she wants.”

“Even though we got _married?_ ” Jughead asks, vaguely amused by Archie’s general support for something that on the surface, at least, he must know is ridiculous.

Archie nods fervently. “Yeah, consequences be damned, kind of. Nothing _terrible_ happened. Betty seems really happy, and after all she’s been through, I’m all about anything that makes her really happy.”

Archie turns his head to look at Jughead, who takes a deep breath and turns to meet his eyes.

“Look, Jug, I - you’re a good guy, and I like you a lot. You seem to have your shit together and you’re basically Veronica’s brother and anyone she cares about, I care about.” Archie makes a distinct _I’m-uncomfortable_ face, but continues nonetheless. In his head, Jughead awards him extra points. “I just want to make sure that no matter what happens with you and Betty - if you stay married or if you don’t or something in between, that you’ll be good to her. If this goes poorly, there’s no way she’s going to let herself have this kind of thing for herself again. I just know it.”

Jughead stares at him, his brain quickly rewinding and replaying everything that Archie has just said. It keeps getting stuck on _if you stay married._ Why would they stay married? Why would that even be in Archie’s head? Was Betty not as gung-ho on the annulment as he’d imagined her to be?

He opens his mouth to press on that point, but before he can speak, a nurse appears before them.

“Betty Cooper. You can see her now.”

 

* * *

 

Betty’s drifting back toward slumber when she hears a soft, “Hey,” and a hand lands very gently on her uninjured shoulder. A beat later, Archie kisses her forehead, and she blinks open her eyes.

“Hey,” she replies, her voice nothing more than a rasp.

In a voice that’s rich with relief, he says, “You scared me.”

Her eyelids droop a little, and she fights off the impulse to close her eyes. “I didn’t do anything,” she points out.

“No, you didn’t,” agrees Veronica, who is suddenly at Archie’s side, setting a vase with a large arrangement of flowers in it onto the table by the bed. “We will _definitely_ be suing that driver,” she says, stepping back to inspect the position of the flowers. Apparently satisfied, she puts a hand on Betty’s ankle and squeezes lightly. “It’s good to see you awake.”

Betty offers her the best smile she can manage, considering the dryness of her mouth and the soreness of one side of her face. “Is he okay? The driver?”

“Yeah, he walked it off, basically,” Archie says, his face very serious.

“ _Utterly_ irresponsible,” Veronica mutters, more to herself than to anyone else, and her words spark something in the back of Betty’s mind.

“My mom,” she says to Archie. “Did they call my mom?”

“No,” he says. “Lucky for us all, you had another automatic emergency contact in your back pocket.”

Betty’s brows draw together in confusion, but before she can ask what he means, Archie moves to one side, and her eyes fall on Jughead, who is standing near the door, a few feet away from the bed, his hands in his pockets. A series of emotions seem to flash over his face when their gazes meet, but none of them linger long enough for her to decipher them.

“Hey,” he says. “Friendly neighbourhood husband, at your service.”

“Juggie,” she says, and lifts the hand that’s not attached to her broken arm off the bed slightly, fingers extended toward him.

He comes closer, stepping into the space between Archie and Veronica, and takes her hand in his own. His skin is much warmer than hers, and she relishes that warmth as his fingers fold, slowly and carefully, around hers. Then he leans down, and, like Archie had, kisses her forehead - but his lips press more firmly, and remain against her skin for longer, long enough that her eyes begin to drift shut once again.

“We’ll give you a moment,” Veronica says, her voice soft. “We’re really glad you’re okay, B.”

With effort, Betty forces her eyes open. “Thank you,” she says, and then glances at Archie, who has not yet begun to follow Veronica toward the door. His face is so somber that her lips twitch into a faint, fond smile. “I’m good, Arch,” she promises.

“Okay,” he says, and then slides a look toward Jughead that seems full of meaning before he leaves the room to join his wife.

When they’re gone, Betty’s not quite sure what to say. “I didn’t put you on anything,” she murmurs. “As my emergency contact.”

“It was Veronica’s idea,” he explains. “While she was fighting with nurses over HIPAA. Apparently I had a very powerful card to play.”

“You didn’t have to come.”

Jughead lifts his hand to touch his cheek; it’s only then that Betty realizes that there’s a small bandage on her face. “You must still be kind of out of it,” he says quietly. “Otherwise, you’re too smart to say something like that. You know I have to be here.”

She squints at him as he smoothes strands of hair back behind her ear. “You’re not my boyfriend,” she says softly.

“No. Just your husband,” he says, one corner of his mouth tilting upward. “Are you in pain?”

“Not really. I think they gave me the good drugs.”

He nods, and skims his knuckles gently against the side of her face.

“Do you know if I get to go home soon?”

“The nurse said they probably want to keep you overnight.”

“Overnight?” she repeats, her voice bordering on a whine.

“Yeah. Just tonight. They should let you go home in the morning.”

Betty’s lower lip pokes outward. “Get Veronica to convince them to let me leave.”

He laughs. “I think the nurses have had _enough_ of Veronica Lodge.” He eyes roam over her face. “I can stay with you, if you want.”

“Yeah?” she asks. “Is that allowed?”

“I’m sure we can make it happen,” he says, and then lowers his voice as he adds conspiratorially, “I played the husband card, but I haven’t yet played the _newlywed_ card.”

That makes Betty laugh, which, in turn, makes everything hurt, and she winces, a little whimper slipping out of her mouth when the movement jostles her arm, creating a sharp, shooting pain.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Jughead says. “I’m sorry.” As she gives her head a tiny shake to indicate that he shouldn’t apologize, he sets a hand on her thigh and rubs gently, a comforting motion. “God, baby,” he sighs, his voice suddenly very quiet. “Wild cab ride, huh?”

“Not the best one I’ve ever taken,” she agrees.

He leans in over her and kisses her forehead again, then puts a soft kiss to the tip of her nose, and then kisses her mouth. She’s expecting a soft brush of lips, but it’s much more than that; it’s insistent, a little ferocious, full of something closer to need than to want, and she’s breathless by the time he pulls away.

“Jughead,” she murmurs, lifting her good hand to his face.

He perches on the edge of her bed, moving very slowly so as not to jostle the mattress, and then kisses the tips of each of her fingers before he holds her palm against his cheek. “Do you need anything? Want me to get you a cup of jello or something?”

She shakes her head against the pillow. “You’re doing it, you know.”

“What?” he asks, turning his head to kiss the middle of her hand.

“Exactly what you said you weren’t cut out for,” she tells him. Her eyelids are growing heavy again. “You’re being my family.”

The last thing she registers before she falls asleep is the feeling of his lips against her cheek, just above the place her skin is scraped.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

Betty’s woken multiple times throughout the night by nurses, who come into the room to monitor her mild concussion, change an IV bag, check her blood pressure, and, once, give her a tiny cup containing two pills for her to swallow. The night is disorienting and not entirely restful, but every time she opens her eyes she sees Jughead slumped into the chair at her bedside, watching her and the movement of the nurses around her with a hint of concern in his own tired eyes, and she keeps falling back into the same dream, in which she’s with him, in Las Vegas, and when she wakes she can’t remember what they were doing, but she can still feel his hand holding onto hers.

In the morning, once her doctor has cleared her to leave, Archie and Veronica return to the hospital with a giant cup of coffee for Jughead, a herbal tea for Betty, a helium-filled _Get Well Soon!_ balloon, and a box of donuts. Veronica’s decided that her driver will take Betty home - apparently Smithers is the only person in all of New York whom she trusts to operate a vehicle at the moment.

Betty's clothes from the previous day were bloodied, and her shirt was cut open by the paramedics, so Veronica helps her change out of her hospital gown and into a pair of yoga pants from an athletic brand so fancy Betty couldn’t afford the pants herself and a sleeveless cotton shirt.

“Did Jughead behave himself last night?” Veronica asks, as she and Betty jointly perform the delicate and somewhat painful task of maneuvering her broken arm into the arm-hole of the shirt.

“We’re in a hospital, Veronica,” she says. “Not exactly an ideal place to get it on.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Veronica says with a small smile, crouching down to slide flip-flops onto Betty’s feet. “I meant with your nurses. You think _I’m_ bad - he gave your doctor the third degree yesterday.”

Betty lifts one eyebrow, just a little, so that the movement doesn’t tug at the skin near the cut on her cheek. “Really?”

Veronica nods as she straightens up again. “He was worried about you. We all were, of course, but… ”

“But?” Betty prompts.

“It’s rare to see Jughead like that. I could probably count on one hand the number of people he cares about in that way… and now you’re one of them.”

“He was sweet to stay with me.”

“He was,” Veronica agrees, with a secretive sort of smile that Betty chooses to ignore. “Do you think you’re ready to go?”

She nods. “Thank you, Veronica. For all of this.”

“Of course. I care about you, too. I know that you’re the closest thing Archie’s ever had to a sister. I’ve never really had a friendship like that, but I sort of figure… now that we’re married, you’re like my sister, too.”

There is something slightly vulnerable about Veronica’s face, and it’s striking - Betty has never seen her look anything but certain. She reaches out and grabs Veronica’s hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that yesterday,” she says. “The crash. I’m sure it was scary.”

Veronica squeezes Betty’s finger and gives a short, quick nod. “What matters is that you’re okay. And you have nothing to be sorry for. That _moron_ of a cab driver - ” She clamps her lips together, putting a stop to her words, and says more calmly, “We’ll discuss legal action once you’re feeling better.”

Betty can’t help but smile. “For the record, Veronica,” she says. “You’re definitely like my sister, too.”

.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

Jughead comes up with her to her apartment after Archie and Veronica have dropped them off, helping her along with an arm looped around her waist.

“Oh, Caramel,” Betty gasps when her cat runs over to greet them. “Did anyone feed her last night?”

Jughead nods, rubbing at the side of Caramel’s body with his sock foot. “Archie came over after they left the hospital. Come on, let’s get you to bed and get a couple of those painkillers in you.”

He leads her into the bedroom and sits her down on her bed. “Do you want to change?”

She nods, gesturing to her sweatpants. “Veronica’s shorter than me.”

“But you’ve got such beautiful ankles,” he teases her lightly, kissing the top of her head. “Point me to your pyjamas.”

“Second to last drawer,” she says, tilting her head toward her dresser. Jughead lifts his eyebrows at her when he finds the pink pair of PJ pants covered in grey cats; she makes a face at him in return. He digs a little further and pulls out a flannel pair dotted with snowflakes and she nods - it’s still summer, but the day isn’t particularly hot, and she wants to be cozy.

Jughead tosses the pants onto the bed and helps her to her feet.

Betty bites her lip and looks up into his face when his fingers tuck into the waistband of her pants. “I’m wearing hospital-issue underwear and it’s been three days since I shaved my legs.”

He smile softly at her. “Betts, I don’t care.”

She shrugs just one shoulder, her uninjured one. “It’s just… a little different than my laciest lingerie.”

“Betty.” He cups her face in his hands and dips his head so that he can look her directly in the eye. “In sickness and in health, right?"

“Right,” she murmurs with a little nod, and then suddenly, her vision blurs with tears. “I - ” she starts, and then finds that she cannot explain herself.

“It’s alright, babe,” Jughead says, his voice low and comforting as he slides a hand to the back of her neck and rubs gently at her skin. “Your body’s had a shock.”

She nods again, drawing in a deep breath. He gives her a moment to collect herself and then slides off her pants and underwear for her, and helps her into a new pair of panties and her pyjama pants. He folds back her blankets and tucks her into bed, adjusting the pillows behind her back.

“What can I get you?” he asks. “Besides meds.”

“Just a glass of water, maybe,” she says as Carmel hops up onto the bed and makes herself comfortable right next to Betty’s hip. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” he says, squeezing her knee over the blankets.

“You can go home, if you want,” she tells him. “I’ll be good as long as my pills are in reach.”

He shakes his head and says, “I’ll stay. That is, if you girls will have me.” He tilts his head toward Caramel.

“Of course,” Betty says. “But you spent all night in that chair - I’m sure you want to go sleep in your own bed, take a shower, do whatever you had planned for today… I mean, you’re still in your workout stuff.”

“Betty,” he says on a sigh, sitting down on her bed. “You - you were in an accident.”

She nods. “I’m… okay, though. Pretty tired and not exactly quick-moving, but - ”

“I want to be here,” Jughead cuts in, his voice quiet and firm. “My plans for today are you.”

“Juggie,” she says on a very soft, careful laugh.

He smiles at her, but his eyes remain serious and free of mirth. “I’ll get your pills and your water.”

“My laptop, too,” she suggests. “We can watch Netflix or something.”

“Sounds good.”

“Come here,” she says, and his smile makes its way up into his eyes as he shifts closer to her. Betty curls her fingers into the collar of his shirt as they kiss, and Jughead presses into her just as he had the night before - distance remains between their bodies, but he kisses her hard, and with purpose, as though that kiss is trying to tell her something. Betty runs her tongue along the seam of his lips, and, as his mouth opens against hers, tries to understand exactly just what it is that he’s silently saying.

 

 

 

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The authors cannot believe that this is nearly over already and would like to formally register their sadness.


	9. Chapter 9

She’s looking at him with uncertainty, suspicion, and what might even be mild contempt. Jughead feels quite unsettled; this is in fairly stark contrast to her earlier friendly behaviour toward him, and has left him with many more questions than answers. What changed to make her behave this way? Has he done something? Has he _not_ done something?

“Caramel,” Jughead says, squatting down in Betty’s kitchenette beside the cat in question, “what’s going on, sweet girl?”

Caramel swishes her tail at him and saunters away, apparently not interested in bonding today, and Jughead stands up again. He’s been here for almost two days now, so it’s possible that Caramel believes he’s outstayed his welcome. It’s also quite possible that Caramel is offended by what he will lovingly term his ‘personal scent’. He definitely needs a shower. It’s third on his list of things to do today, right after _feed Caramel_ \- he bets he and the cat will be best friends again soon - and _double-check that Betty’s pills are by her bedside_.

They are, of course. He knows they are. He also knows that her night-time pain meds put her out of commission for a good while, so he probably has another half an hour, easy, to shower before she wakes up.

Jughead hurries anyway, shaking kibble into Caramel’s bowl and then peeking into Betty’s bedroom to briefly stare at the prescription bottle on the bedside table by her sleeping form. With visual confirmation received, Jughead skips into the bathroom and begins to shed his clothes. They’re the same ones he wore to go running two days earlier and were probably nearing the end of their freshness when he arrived at the hospital; now that he’s been lounging around Betty’s apartment for a while, cleaning, helping her sit up and eat, being worn and slept in, they’re definitely _ripe._

He takes his phone from the bathroom counter and quickly taps a message to Veronica, the only other person with a key to his apartment. **_Formal request for assistance: can you go to my apartment, pack me a few days of clothes in a bag, and bring them to Betty’s? My current outfit seems to be past its prime._**

Jughead sets the phone back down, then steps into Betty’s bathtub and starts the shower. Her water pressure is surprisingly excellent for this neighbourhood, and he has to fight the urge to stand under the spray a bit longer than necessary.

He dries off quickly once he’s finished, smirking in amusement to himself when he smells the scent of Betty’s eucalyptus shampoo on his towel, then pulls on his boxers. When she’s awake, he decides to ask Betty if it’s okay for him to wash his t-shirt and shorts; if Veronica doesn’t pull through - which she will, he’s confident - it’ll probably be useful at some point to have clothes to wear that don’t smell like week-old sweat.

Jughead glances at his phone, notices a waiting message, and quickly reads it. It’s classic Veronica: **_Got it. Need me to bring you some condoms too? ;)_** to which he immediate replies, **_She’s INJURED, Ronnie_** , then combs his hair with his fingers and proceeds into Betty’s bedroom.

She’s awake, propped up against pillows where she’s been for the last thirty-six hours since coming home from the hospital, save for a few trips to the bathroom. Betty had spent much of the previous day sleeping, her body still exhausted from both the accident, anaesthesia, and pain medication. He’s been monitoring her and tending to her needs - mostly helping her to the bathroom and feeding her light soups, as her pain medication seems to have left her stomach feeling slightly unsettled.

Betty seems more alert already than she had yesterday: her eyes are brighter, her cheeks have more colour, and her lips curl into a tired smile when she sees him. He doesn’t miss the wince of pain when she accidentally tries use her broken arm to sit up further, but there’s no shake in her voice when she greets him. “Morning, Juggie.”

“Hey you,” he replies, sitting on the corner of her bed. “How do you feel this morning?”

“A little better than yesterday, but still sore.” She grimaces and looks toward her pain meds. Jughead grabs them immediately. As he shakes two into his palm, Betty asks, “Are you planning a Chippendale’s thing for me?”

He’s distracted, and nearly drops her bottle of water. “Huh?”

She gestures to him, and Jughead realizes that he’s still just wearing his boxers. “Your attire … or lack thereof. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but-”

He feels himself redden slightly. “I took a shower,” he explains. “It was becoming time. Turns out being sweaty to begin with, then spending a night at a hospital and two sleeping on your couch is my limit. When I can actually smell myself, you know it’s bad.”

“Oh no,” Betty moans. “I must smell, too.”

“No!” Jughead protests, shaking his head. “I did not say that as a hint. You smell fine.”

“Well, either way.” She draws the corner of her lip between her teeth. “I think I’d like to take a bath, too.”

Jughead hands her the medication that’s still in his palm. “Take these first. I’ll go run a bath.”

“I can do it myself, Jug.”

He actually doubts that, given how much pain she’s clearly still in from the accident. Even leaving aside her broken arm, Betty hasn’t spent much time walking around her apartment, and when she has there’s a distinct look of distress on her face that Jughead hasn’t seen before. She needs rest and her post-surgery antibiotics - she _doesn’t_ need to shuffle around in a tired daze and fumble her way through a bath. Not when there’s somebody here to take care of her.

Him.

He’d meant it, what he’d told her before - _in sickness and in health._

He stands up. “I’ll go run the bath,” he repeats, his voice a bit more firm. Betty rolls her eyes at him but tilts her chin up at the same time, and Jughead pecks her lips briefly before leaving her bedroom.

As a bath runs, Jughead peeks inside one of the bathroom drawers and locates an old, half-used bottle of lavender-scented bath oil. He drops a small amount in the running water, then turns the tap off and moves to go back to get Betty. When he turns around she’s already standing in the doorway, her good arm folded across her abdomen, a small smile on her face.

“Hey,” he says softly, stepping toward her. “I was just about to come get you.”

“I’m not an invalid,” Betty chides gently, though there is obvious affection glinting in her eyes. “Thank you for getting it ready for me.”

Jughead shrugs. “No problem. Do you need help?”

“I think I can manage. But I’ll let you know.”

He kisses her temple. “Okay. I’m going to see what I can make for breakfast. I think I used all your eggs yesterday, but there might be something.” She gives a nod of assent, then he slips out of bathroom, leaving the door ajar just slightly so that he can hear her if she needs help.

Jughead walks past Betty’s storage-slash-laundry room and notices that the washer is running. He notices that his dirty clothing is missing from the pile he’d unceremoniously left it in and realizes that Betty must have tossed in a load of laundry before coming to the bathroom. He makes a mental note to thank her, then continues toward the kitchen.

He rustles through Betty’s fridge, grimacing at the remaining food inside: spinach, mushrooms, and half-frozen chicken that he’d pulled out the night before. No eggs, and only the rejected end pieces of what was once a loaf of bread on her counter. “Shit,” he mumbles to himself. “Looks like a Postmates kind of day, right Caramel?”

The cat, which post-breakfast has indeed begun to like him again, winds through his ankles. She purrs in response.

Jughead rolls his eyes. He closes the fridge and reaches for his phone, intending to flip through breakfast delivery options, then realizes that Veronica has responded to his last text.

_**On my way to your apartment! Also bringing food I had Daddy’s chef prepare last night.** _

He lets out an audible sigh of relief, then types a quick reply. _**You’re an angel, Ronnie.**_

The words are just out when Betty’s voice cuts through the silence. “Juggie?”

He drops his phone onto the counter and hurries toward the bathroom. Poking his head in, he sees that Betty has managed to undress and lower herself into the tub, but she’s holding her broken arm out at an awkward angle and biting her lip with uncertainty. Jughead grins. “Need help, baby?”

Betty makes a face at him. “Don’t gloat,” she says, “but yes. I can’t wash my hair.”

Jughead maintains his smile as he walks toward the tub and reaches up for the corded telephone showerhead. “No gloating here.” He lays an extra towel over the ridge of the tub and pats it with his free hand. “Put your broken arm here,” he directs. When she does so, Jughead gently wraps the edges of the towel around her cast so as to keep it dry from any errant spray. He allows his gaze to very briefly fall across her naked form, then glances away.

 _Stop,_ he tells himself. That is not what this is about. She needs him to help her take a bath, not ogle her when she’s injured.

Jughead lifts his hands to her hair, gestures for her to slide forward in the tub, then perches on the lip of the tub slightly behind her. He brings the showerhead over her forehead, tilts it backward, and begins to wet her hair.

“You can look,” Betty says, soft and unexpected.

Jughead swallows, clicks the showerhead off, and begins to lather shampoo into her hair. “I’m not _not_ looking,” he replies, keeping his voice as measured as possible.

“I know I’m not exactly in my best state.”

He presses his fingertips into her scalp, massaging gently. “God, Betty, that’s _not_ why I - you’re injured, and I want to help,” he explains. “I’m not going to use that as an opportunity to ogle you.”

She bites her lip and tilts her head back for him to rinse the shampoo from her hair. “Well, I’m using it as an opportunity to ogle _you,_ ” she informs him, her eyes closing.

Jughead chuckles and turns the water back on, then combs his fingers through her hair until the shampoo is gone. “I’m here for your viewing pleasure.”

Betty giggles, and he starts to work the conditioner into her hair. “Maybe you’ll be here for some other kind of pleasure later?” she asks hopefully.

 _That_ raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t planned on anything like that, but if she’s asking, he’s definitely okay with obliging. “Naughty girl,” he teases, “maybe after breakfast.”

“Did you find anything to make?”

Jughead shakes his head. “Ronnie is dropping off some clothes for me and also bringing food, apparently.” He reaches for the showerhead again. “Lean back, Betts.”

Instead of obeying, Betty twists slightly so she can face him and sticks out her lower lip. “Aww,” she pouts, “I like only-boxers-Jughead.”

“He’ll still be around.” Jughead leans down and kisses her softly. He slides a hand across her chest and cups one of her breasts, squeezing gently. “I promise.”

Betty pulls back, a smile on her face. “Okay,” she breathes.

He washes the conditioner out of her hair, then assists Betty with the rest of her bath. He can hear the water draining while he helps her towel-dry; just as he’s finishing up and wrapping the towel around her, the buzzer to her apartment sounds.

“Veronica,” Jughead explains to Betty. “I’ll let her up; do you think you can get dressed?”

She looks uncertain. “Maybe. I’ll try.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he advises, opening the bathroom door. Betty nods, heads to her bedroom, and Jughead goes to the door to press the talk button. “Ronnie?”

“Yes!” Veronica’s voice chirps.

“C’mon up.” He buzzes her in, then grabs a blanket from the back of the couch to wrap around himself.

Veronica arrives at the door in minutes, flanked by her parents’ driver, Smithers. She strides in, laughing at his makeshift toga, and hands him a tote bag of clothing. “Please tell me you’re at least wearing underwear.”

“Please tell me you brought me _new_ underwear,” he retorts. “Hi, Smithers.”

“Mr. Jones,” Smithers greets formally, holding a series of foil-wrapped tins. “Shall I put the food in the refrigerator?”

Jughead nods. “Yes, please.”

Veronica hops onto one of the barstools that line the small island in Betty’s kitchen. “Where’s the patient?”

“Getting dressed. Or trying to, anyway. She just took a bath.”

“First time?” Veronica guesses. At his nod, she smiles. “That must have felt nice. Clean, finally. I see you are, too.” Her eyebrows wiggle. “Maybe nice for _both_ of you.”

Jughead rolls his eyes. “I’m going to put clothes on,” he declares, still holding the tote bag. “I’ll be right back.”

He knocks gently on Betty’s bedroom door. “It’s me,” he says, “can I come in?”

A slightly muffled “yes” is heard, and he slips through the door quickly. Betty is sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing a pair of pajama shorts and seemingly nothing else, her good arm crossed in front of her chest.

“Putting a shirt on is somehow harder than taking it off with this stupid cast,” Betty complains. “I can’t really bend it the way I need to yet; it hurts.”

Jughead spots a tank top on the bed beside Betty. “You want this shirt?” he asks. She nods, and he moves to slip it over her good arm, then suddenly pauses. “Bra?”

“I’m okay without if I’m just going to be laying around.” Betty tilts her head. “Unless you want me to wear one.”

“I want you to be comfortable,” he says, the corner of his lips curling upward at her teasing.

Betty nods. “Then … without.”

“Okay.” Jughead helps her with the shirt, glad to see that she chose one with a wide neckline so that he didn’t have to stretch it out to get her head through at the odd arm-first angle he’s had to maneuver. “Veronica is out there. I’m just going to put clothes on quick.” He points to the bag by the door, and Betty nods.

“Thanks, dear,” she says, pecking his lips. “Most helpful husband.”

He grins. “Just giving you reasons to keep me around,” he jokes, but a flash of something unreadable crosses Betty’s face at his words, and there’s a quiet moment of awkward heaviness before she clears her throat.

“There are lots of reasons to keep you around, Juggie,” she says softly, then she opens her bedroom door and is gone.

Jughead stares at the back of the door for a second before shaking his head free of the confusion that’s swirling in his mind. There’s a specific agenda right now: clothes, breakfast. He’ll have time to dwell over the state of his relationship and Betty’s cryptic comments later.

Veronica has packed a pair of jeans, three pairs of boxers, and a small assortment of his old t-shirts. He puts some mixture of all of them on, then follows Betty through the door.

Smithers is nowhere to be seen; he’s probably waiting in the car, Jughead realizes, which also means that Veronica is likely not staying long. She’s still at the island, but now she’s standing behind a seated Betty, wrapping her wet hair into some kind of knot at the top of her head.

“- really sweet,” she’s saying, “catering to my every need.”

“That’s Jughead,” Veronica replies, smiling as she meets his eyes. “He’s a mother hen.”

“I am not,” he says crossly, but when the next thing that crosses his mind is _Betty needs to eat something,_ he realizes that maybe there’s more truth to that than he’d like.

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Veronica leaves after a short visit and a restauranteur-like rundown of the meals she’d brought. They eat some kind of breakfast hash, then move to the couch at Betty’s request.

“I’m tired of the bed,” she explains.

She leans her good side into Jughead, who alternates between managing the volume of _Parks and Recreation_ and watching Caramel. The cat seems to not know quite what to do with two of them on the couch, and eventually chooses to lay at the end away from both he and Betty.

“She likes you,” Betty assures him, sleepy. Her pills are beginning to kick in, so her commentary is becoming a little loopy. “She’s just confused.”

“She didn’t like me this morning,” Jughead tells her. “Then I fed her and suddenly we were best friends again.”

Betty gives a tired laugh. “You and her have a lot in common.”

“Hey, I liked you right away!” Jughead frowns. “I’m just … kind of a dick, I dunno.”

“No.” Betty’s eyes are already closed. “You’re the sweetest man.”

He presses his lips together then decides he doesn’t care to fight the smile that’s coming. “Thanks, baby,” he says quietly, kissing her temple.

“I like when you call me that,” she mumbles, turning her head to rest her cheek on his chest. “I like you. Got nice hair.”

Jughead chuckles. “I like you too, Betty.”

“Juggie?” Betty drawls, her voice slow and unsteady.

He strokes her good arm, his touch soft and delicate. “Yeah?”

She sighs again, twisting her legs, and breathes into his shirt. “Let’s just stay married,” she says in a near-whisper.

Jughead freezes. _She’s on meds,_ he tells himself immediately, _she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Right?_

Betty’s still mumbling against him, most of it unintelligible. He rubs her arm again, hears a distinct “night-night”, and she begins to snore quietly.

On-screen, Leslie Knope is about to meet Ben Wyatt for the first time. Jughead wonders if the writers always knew what the two of them would become - preordained - or if it’s something that developed as their chemistry did.

Then he looks down at Betty, and he realizes that it’s irrelevant. What matters is that they _did_ become something great, that regardless of initial intention, those characters were meant to be together, and he can’t help but think that maybe - just _perhaps_ \- the same can be true for real people, too.

 

* * *

 

Betty wakes a few hours later, back in her bed, a fact that disorients her for a few seconds until she realizes Jughead must have carried her there after she passed out on the couch. She stretches out her tired limbs, save for her broken arm; at the foot of the bed, Caramel bats at Betty’s foot when it peeks out from under the blankets, and then bites down lovingly on her big toe.

“Bad kitty,” Betty scolds sleepily, opening up her eyes to look at the cat, who stares back at her.

The sight of Caramel sparks something in her memory. Caramel decided not to cuddle with them on the couch. Caramel is always more friendly toward Jughead around meal times. Jughead said he was a dick to her when they first met, but he wasn’t, he’s not, Jughead is great, she _likes_ him -

She has the impulse to sit up abruptly, but the movement stops nearly as soon as it starts when her arm is jostled painfully, making her suck in air through her teeth. She drops her head back to her pillow and presses her hand to her face. She remembers thinking, fading into slumber and so comfortable nestled against Jughead’s side, feeling so safe and cared-for there, _we should just stay married._ It occurs to her, now, though, that she didn’t just think it - she mumbled that sentiment into his chest as the _Parks and Recreation_ theme song played cheerfully.

She can’t remember if he responded. If he did, it got lost somewhere in the pain-medicine-induced haze of her mind. She thinks she knows Jughead well enough by now to know that he wouldn’t have left her - he’s undoubtedly still in the apartment somewhere - but she wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to. He probably thinks he accidentally married a somewhat crazy, excessively clingy girl.

“What did you let me do, huh?” she demands softly of Caramel as the cat walks up over her legs and settles onto her belly, waiting to be pet.

Betty gives Caramel’s neck a rub with her good hand and then slowly pushes the covers back and makes her way out of bed. She heads for the bathroom first, and realizes, as she steps into the hall, that she can smell something cooking. It must be close to dinner time, which means she slept for longer than she’d thought.

In the bathroom mirror, she frowns at her hair. She slept on it while it was damp, and now it’s a frizzy, tangly mess. She brushes it out, but putting it up in a ponytail is an impossibility when she only has one hand to work with. She meets her own eyes in the mirror and finds that they’re full of trepidation. Her fingers tighten around the handle of her hairbrush. She really wants to put her hair into the ponytail she was known for in high school. It’s her most comfortable hairstyle, her get-shit-done hairstyle, her in-control hairstyle. But she knows, without even having to try, that it’s not going to happen.

She’s going to have to have this conversation with Jughead the same way she married him - her guard down, her inhibitions pried away by circumstance. It’s not exactly what she wants, but she supposes that it’s fitting.

After gathering her courage, Betty all but tiptoes into the kitchen, her throat tight with nervousness, only to find Jughead cursing at a pot atop the stove.

“Juggie?” she asks.

“Hey,” he says, spinning around to face her. “How are you feeling? You were out for - ” He glances at the stove clock. “Five hours.”

“Pretty good,” she says softly. “I think a bath and a nap were just what the doctor ordered.” She sidles closer, trying to peer into the pot. “What’re you making?”

“I’m not even making anything,” he says, his face falling slightly. “I’m just trying to heat up this thing _Francois_ made, but apparently I’m too poor to even do that.”

Betty’s nose crinkles a litle in confusion. “Who’s Francois?”

“Hiram’s chef,” Jughead sighs. “Straight from Le Cordon Bleu.” He shakes his head. “It’s just fucking pasta sauce; I should’ve put it in the microwave, but there were instructions, so - ”

“What’s the problem?” Betty asks gently, as though she can’t smell a hint of burning. She takes the wooden spoon from his hand.

“It’s sticking to the bottom, and some of the vegetables are charred. Too much heat, I guess?” His mouth makes a dissatisfied shape. “I, uh - I’m not much of a cook. In case you haven’t gathered.”

She smiles at him, his sweet bashfulness, which seems to border on embarrassment, putting her at ease, acting like a balm to her nerves. “Is the pasta already cooked?”

“No,” he says, nodding toward a bag of multi-coloured fusilli.

“Okay,” she says easily. “Throw it in some boiling water for about five minutes, and then we’ll bake it with the unburnt parts of the sauce. Is there cheese?”

Jughead nods.

“Then we’re good.” She flashes him a quick, teasing grin. “Cheese can fix anything.”

He sets his hand on her hip, and slowly slides it around to the small of her back, where he applies gentle pressure, pulling her closer until her body is flush against his, careful not to hurt her arm. “You are brilliant,” he says, and then kisses her soundly. She presses into it, her tongue darting into his mouth almost immediately, and he makes a low, approving sound.

She pulls away slowly, reluctantly, nipping at his lower lip; he seems to follow her, leaning into her, holding her close. “Pasta, Jughead,” she reminds him breathily.

“Right,” he says, but he kisses her again, and then once more still, like he can’t stop himself. “Right.”

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“Thanks for carrying me to bed earlier,” Betty says once the pasta’s in the oven and the pot that contained the sauce is in the sink to soak. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I figured you’d be more comfortable,” he says. “And it was no problem.” He finishes drying his hands, and then offers, “Want a cup of tea while you wait?”

A smile tugs at her lips. “You’re a good nurse.”

“Something to explore when the writing career doesn’t pan out,” Jughead says wryly. “I’ll take that as a yes. You sit, Betts.” He nods to the stools by the counter.

“I slept all day,” she reminds him, but she takes a seat nonetheless. “And the writing career will pan out.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he says as he fills the kettle. He leans back against the counter as he waits for the water to boil, and seems to study her for a moment, his eyes tracing over the planes of her face. “You still look worn,” he says, his voice softer now.

Earlier, Betty might’ve made a quip about that being something a man should avoid saying to his wife, but that seems like dangerous territory now, and besides, it’s probably true enough, given that she still _feels_ fairly worn, even if she’d like to pretend otherwise. “Mostly just still drowsy from the meds,” she explains. “I’m alright.”

He pushes away from the counter and comes to stand in front of her. “It’s good that they’re managing your pain,” he says, pushing the messy waves of her hair out of her face and tucking them behind her ear. “But they make you a little loopy, huh?”

She breaks eye contact, looking down at the floor. “Yeah. Yeah, I - I know we talked before I fell asleep… ” She draws in a deep breath, but at the last moment, she chickens out and finishes, lamely: “But I can hardly even remember what I was saying.”

Jughead’s silent, and when she finally peeks back up at him, looking at him through her lashes, his expression is sober, the crease between his brows betraying some kind of concentration. “You said some interesting things,” he murmurs. “Things that… I’ve thought too.”

“What?” she asks on a quiet breath.

“Betty… ” He puts his hand to her cheek, the briefest of touches, before that hand falls to his side. “I like you. I really do. I never would’ve had the guts to ask you out, outside of whatever drunk decision we came to in Vegas, and I… I keep wondering if I’m being a complete moron, letting you go.”

“Jughead, I like you, too.” She reaches for the hand at his side and squeezes his fingers. “You’re a _great_ guy. These past couple days, you’ve been so wonderful to me, I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

“There’s nothing to repay,” he cuts in softly.

The corners of her mouth pull upward in the beginnings of a smile. “Like that,” she says. “Exactly like that. I like who you are, and I like being with you. But that’s not… ” She swallows so hard that it feels more like a gulp. “That’s not reason to stay _married_ , is it? That would be - it would be crazy. Marriage is a serious commitment. A lifelong commitment. And we made it on a whim.” She bites her lip. “We can - we can still be together, can’t we? After the annulment?”

“Of course.” The crease has reappeared between Jughead’s brows, and Betty resists the temptation to reach up and smooth it away. “But I don’t think I want to be your boyfriend, Betty. I want to be your husband.”

She can feel her eyes growing wide. “Jughead - ”

“These past few weeks, being married to you - they’ve been the best of my life. And I don’t just mean the sex we’ve been having, I mean everything. I’ve been really happy. When I’m with you - even in a Planned Parenthood waiting room, of all places - it all just feels so normal and relaxed and easy. And when I told you about my sister… ” Her grip tightens on his fingers automatically, and he squeezes her hand in return, smiling faintly. “You were just like this. Like you’re being right now. So solidly supportive. So kind.”

“I’ve been happy, too,” she whispers, her throat aching in the way that so often precedes tears. She licks her lips and adds, “But… ”

“I thought _but_ too,” Jughead says, and as he speaks, she can see him forcing himself to be brave, squaring his shoulders, meeting her eyes - and abruptly, in that moment, she thinks that she might love him. “I thought I was caught up in the romanticism of it all, that I couldn’t possibly have married the right person at Veronica’s bachelorette party in Vegas, that all that shit people say, _when you know you know_ , that it wasn’t real, that it was all some Hallmark fantasy. But then you - you got in that accident, and when Veronica called me, and when I saw you in that hospital bed… it was real.” It’s his turn to swallow hard. “I knew.”

“Juggie,” she murmurs, her eyes pinned on his face. She can hardly believe _this_ is real, and wonders if her pain pills are now giving her hallucinations, but when she grips his hand even more firmly, he returns the gesture, holding onto her tightly in return, grounding her.

“We can get the annulment if you want, Betts,” he says. “But I want this. You. I want you to be my wife. I’ll propose to you again. I still have your rings; I didn’t sell them.”

A tear slips out of one of Betty’s eyes and trails its way down her cheek. “That’s the ugliest engagement ring I’ve ever seen,” she says in a small voice.

“Only the best for you, baby,” he teases, but his eyes are still so serious.

“It’s real for me, too,” she says thickly. “It is. It just seems impossible.”

“I know. But I’ve been unhappy for a lot of days in my life, and some of that feeling was of my own making. I’m not going to do that this time. You and me - if you’re in, then so am I.”

“Of course I’m in,” she whispers. “I’m just… scared. The way I feel with you, it’s different than any relationship I’ve ever been in before, and it’s _good_ , but it’s - maybe it’s too good to be true.”

“You can say that the orgasms are mind-blowing, Betty,” he jokes in a soft, slow voice. “I’ll only remind you of it about once a month.”

She pouts at him; she’d swat at his chest if one of her arms weren’t out of commission. “Are you really being _funny_ right now?”

Jughead shakes his head. “I’m being serious.” He strokes a thumb over the apple of her cheek, moving it back and forth very lightly. “If I’d found the courage, somehow. If I’d asked you out, in a sober scenario, on a normal date - coffee, dinner, movies, whatever. Would you have said yes?”

She lets her eyes wander over his face, taking in the stubble on his cheeks and above his upper lip, the beautiful blue of his eyes, the points of his cheekbones, his infinitely kissable mouth. She imagines that scenario - his quiet question, her mild surprise, the blush that would creep up her neck, the way she’d feel when their fingers brushed as she accepted his phone to type in her number, the excitement of something new, the unexpected ease.

“Yes,” she tells him.

Jughead loops his free arm around her waist, tugging her up off the stool and onto her feet, so that she’s standing right in front of him, barely an inch of space between their bodies. “So say yes now,” he says, and she catches just the slightest hint of apprehension in his eyes.

She presses a kiss to his mouth. “A thousand,” she says, and then kisses him again, pulling back just enough to add, “times,” before she plants another kiss against his lips and breaks it just long enough to add, emphatically, “yes.”

With the utmost gentleness, he scoops her up, his mouth still pressed to hers. She giggles against his lips as he carries her to the couch and sets her down carefully, her back propped against throw pillows as he settles in next to her.

“Why, Mr. Cooper,” she teases, “what exactly are your intentions?”

“To convince you to hyphenate,” he murmurs, his lips already trailing kisses down the column of her neck. “Cooper-Jones.”

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The pasta burns in the oven.

 

 

tbc.


	10. Chapter 10

A lot of things have changed for Jughead in the last two months. His best friend got married. _He_ got married (to his best friend’s husband’s best friend). He tried to get an annulment. His wife got in a car accident. He spent the first half of a week taking care of her, during which time they decided _not_ to get an annulment, then spent the latter half in her bed with his head between her thighs.

But despite all of that, _this_ is the hardest thing that Jughead has had to do in a long time. Today he’s standing on a corner in Brooklyn Heights, staring up at the white and black signage of a Sephora location.

Jughead has passed by Sephora before. Hell, he’s passed by _this_ Sephora before. He gets it: makeup, perfume. Not exactly groundbreaking. And yet somehow, it feels subtly threatening at the same time. He’s walked by it in malls, and one thing’s for sure: it’s an assault on the senses. Loud, bad music. Overly energetic salesgirls with frighteningly thick makeup. And the smells - _god._ So many smells. He’s avoided it with ease over the years, since he’s never had any particular reason to go inside, but today all of that changes.

He takes a deep breath - his last of fresh air before his nasal passages are overcome with a horrible mixture of every B-list celebrity’s terrible fragrance - and pulls the door open, stepping inside.

Everything that isn’t trendy New York black is coated in a brilliant white, and his eyes start to hurt. Already, he is out of place: his ears are filled with a combination of pop music and high-pitched laughter, there are zero men in the store, and nobody is wearing flannel.

Jughead swallows. This is worth it.

He looks around, trying to determine which of the Stepford salesgirls he wants to ask for help, when one steps directly in front of him, grins, and says, “Hi! Can I help you find anything?”

“Uh.” He scratches his ear, feeling awkward. “Nail polish. I need nail polish.”

“Okay,” the girl says, “what type do you usually - what type do you prefer?”

“It’s for my wife,” Jughead says lamely, feeling somehow like he needed to add that bit of information in. He’s not opposed to nail polish as a concept, and has known a fair few guys who have been into it, but it’s never been part of his aesthetic and as a result he’s fairly clueless.

“Okay.” The girl smiles, slight amusement evident in her voice. “What type does she prefer?”

He can feel his anxiety rising. _Type? What the hell does that mean?_

“The light pink type?” He guesses.

The salesgirl is clearly torn between her requirement for professionalism and her obvious desire to laugh at Jughead’s ignorance. The corner of her perfectly painted lips quirks upward, and she asks, “What is her complexion? Does she usually wear light pink polish?”

“Pale? I dunno, she doesn’t usually wear much nail polish, I think.”

“Hm. Maybe something a little more nude, then. Come with me.” She turns on her heel and click-clacks her way to a rack of hundreds of bottles of nail polish.

Jughead stares at the array of colours; how is a person supposed to pick _one?_

With ease, apparently; a beat later, the salesgirl selects one slim bottle and hands it to Jughead. “This one is called ‘future’s bright’. Pinkish, but more of a nude with some gold in there. If she doesn’t wear polish that often but you want it for a special occasion, this would be good.” She takes another and shows it to Jughead also, adding, “This one’s a bit more pink - it’s called ‘sweet almond’ - just for comparison.”

They both look nice to Jughead, so out of pure sentimentality he chooses the one called ‘future’s bright’. He then promptly declines any further assistance and makes a beeline straight for the cash register, where he gets stuck behind a couple of teenage girls who are talking about highlighters. School doesn’t start for a few weeks, so Jughead’s not sure why school supplies are the topic of conversation, but he has never really been able to understand this generation anyway.

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Later that evening, Jughead has a date with Betty. He brings a change of clothes, the nail polish, and something else: a new ring.

Functionally, Jughead knows that there’s nothing wrong with their rings. The main issue is that they’re fairly ugly, and apparently intentionally so. This was fine with him when he and Betty were on the fast track to an annulment, but now that they’ve decided to stay married, he figures that he should probably get his wife something nicer to wear on her finger.

(They also need to work on not living in separate apartments, but it’s hard to get reasonable opinions about something like this when the opening question is _‘should I move in with my wife?’_ Plus, he hasn’t told Veronica that they’re staying married yet, and since she’s the only person he’d probably ask for advice, Jughead’s kind of been flying by the seat of his pants with most of this.)

He walks to Betty’s apartment, grabbing a small bouquet of flowers from a bodega on the corner along the way. When she opens her door, he holds the flowers in front of his face, only lowering them when she giggles and tugs at his wrist.

“Get in here, Juggie.”

Jughead grins and kisses her by way of greeting. “Hey you,” he murmurs, dropping a kiss high on her cheekbone. “You look pretty.”

Betty looks down, seemingly appraising herself, then shrugs a little. “Just in comfy clothes,” she replies, but a small smile tugs at the corner of her lips and he knows she’s taking his compliment to heart.

He’s going to tell her that every day until they’re old and grey.

She does look nice, though; she might just be wearing leggings and a t-shirt, but the shirt is a vibrant blue colour that sets off her summer tan and the grey leggings are _really_ working for her. Jughead decides to demonstrate his approval by dropping a hand down to squeeze her ass. He can tell by the rise of Betty’s cheeks that she’s smiling against his shoulder.

“How’s your arm doing?” he asks as they pull away from one another and he fully steps into her apartment.

“Still broken, but I’m learning to embrace the whole cast-on-my-arm look. I might decorate it for the holidays.”

Jughead laughs. “It’ll be gone by then,” he reminds her. “But I like your style, Cooper.” He sets his bag on the ground, then leans over to retrieve the nail polish from inside. As he does so, Caramel winds her way around his ankles, and he gives the cat an affectionate rub on her head before standing up with the polish in his hands. “I have a surprise for you.”

Betty looks at him curiously. “Nail polish?” One eyebrow raises slowly. “For what?”

“I know you’re a little annoyed at the broken-arm thing, and I can’t make that go by faster, but I thought maybe nail polish would help cheer you up.” He looks at her apprehensively. “I dunno, a girl at work suggested it. If it’s lame, forget about-”

“It’s not lame,” she says quickly, placing her good hand on his. “That’s very sweet of you. It’s just - I don’t think I can do it with a broken arm; you know my hand doesn’t totally bend properly on the left side with the stupid cast.”

“I’ll paint them for you,” Jughead offers.

Betty laughs, then stops as she seems to slowly realize that he means it. “Wait, have you ever painted nails before?”

 _What does that have to do with anything?_ he wonders. “No,” Jughead says aloud, “but how hard can it be?”

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It is, apparently, very hard.

At least, it is for him. It seems to be easy for eight-year-old girls and yet here he is, a grown adult man, and he keeps getting more polish on Betty’s skin than on her nails. He also didn’t buy something called a topcoat, but luckily Betty has a bottle of it anyway.

On the upside, Betty’s been uncontrollably laughing at him for the last hour, and the look of mirth and happiness in her eyes is worth every peg on the self-respect ladder that he’s just been knocked down.

“Jug, honestly, you don’t have to finish,” Betty says, using her good wrist to wipe tears from her eyes. “This was a really sweet idea, but-”

“I’m gonna get it right,” he declares. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m gonna get it right.”

Betty rolls her eyes, but there’s an affectionate glint behind the look she gives him and he’ll take that, too. “Thank you, Jug. I really mean it. You were right; it did cheer me up a little. Once they’re dry and - um, fixed a little - it’ll be nice to look down and see painted nails for a change.”

“You’re welcome.” He shrugs innocently, then glances up and catches her eye. “I would be lying if I said there were no ulterior motives, though.”

Betty frowns. “What do you mean?”

Jughead pauses, knowing he should wait for the polish to dry before getting the rings, but he can’t stop himself. So in the middle of Betty’s left index finger’s second coat of polish, he sets the bottle aside and reaches back into his bag. His fingers close around a small velvet box. He swallows, lifts it into plain sight, and smiles nervously.

“I mean this.”

 

* * *

 

Just shy of three weeks later, on a cloudless Sunday morning, Betty feels Jughead give her fingers a gentle squeeze as they walk into The Carlyle to meet Archie and Veronica for brunch. As they head toward the restaurant, he lifts her hand and drops a kiss against her knuckles, and her heart feels like it’s melting as she slides a soft glance toward him.

“You’re not nervous, are you?” he asks, and she smiles, shaking her head.

“No, of course not,” she says. As surreal as things still feel sometimes, she’s excited to tell their best friends that they’ve decided to stay married - she thinks Archie will be proud of her, and she hopes that Veronica knows by now how much she cares for Jughead, how much she wants to make him happy, and that that knowledge will lend itself to approval. She’s ready for them to know. She’s not wearing the new ring Jughead got her - the beautiful, sparkling-but-understated ring that is much more her speed and remarkably close to the engagement ring she used to envision for herself, in passing - and her finger already feels naked without it; she keeps touching her thumb to her ring finger to check for it and feeling a spike of panic when she doesn’t encounter the band she’s grown used to finding there.

Right now, the ring is back in its box, tucked safely into her purse, ready to be displayed once they break the news. They both knew that Veronica’s eagle eye would zero in on it immediately if she wore it to brunch, and they want to explain their decision to their friends rather than have it announced by a piece of jewellery.

She’s been wearing it to work, and a couple of her coworkers have noticed, congratulating her excitedly, commenting that they didn’t know she was seeing anyone, and she’s accepted their best wishes with a bit of mumbling about keeping her private life private. She showed Kevin the ring over FaceTime; he nearly cried and then demanded another FaceTime call to meet the man who’d given it to her. It’s definitely time to tell Archie, and in a few days or weeks, she’ll figure out how tell her parents. She has to admit, however, that she hasn’t exactly minded the secrecy of the past couple weeks, during which the decision has just been something that’s _theirs_ , hers and Jughead’s.

(The look on his face when she’d said yes to his quasi-proposal - they were already legally married, but he’d looked so relieved, so _happy_ ; he’d had such softness in his eyes that she’d begun to cry when he slipped the ring on her finger, wiggling it past her knucklebone. He’d breathed _mine_ against the curve of her breast when she was writhing beneath him, and when she’d gasped, _yes, yours_ \- well. Jughead gave her three orgasms with just his tongue and fingers, and when she was panting against his mouth as he moved inside of her, her breathless _I love you_ came out sounding almost like a sob.

Her nail polish hadn’t been fully dry by the time he pressed her into the couch, and there is a little stain of ‘future’s bright’ on one of the cushions, but Betty has not, for even a moment, been mad about it. Every time she looks at it, she can’t help but grin.)

A hostess leads them to the table reserved under Andrews for a party of four, where Archie and Veronica are already sitting, their shoulders pressed together as they lean in to talk to one another quietly. Veronica spots them first and beams, getting up out of her seat.

“How are you doing?” she asks Betty sympathetically, holding her arms out and bestowing a careful hug.

“Good,” Betty says, giving Veronica a squeeze with her good arm. “Only a few weeks left. And I think the excellent nursing care I had in the beginning has done wonders for my recovery,” she adds, tilting her head toward Jughead.

“I’m sure,” Veronica says with one of her knowing smiles, turning toward Jughead to give him a hug, too.

“Hey, Betts,” Archie says, giving her a hug every bit as gentle as Veronica’s was and putting a quick kiss to her temple.

“Hey,” she replies, studying him for a few seconds as they pull apart. “Arch, you look so happy,” she says softly.

He waggles his brows. “So do you.”

They all take their seats, and the waitress arrives to take their orders. Champagne glasses are filled with Prosecco; Betty orders an egg white frittata and Jughead, predictably, gets the burger. His hand lands on her knee beneath the tablecloth once they’ve all handed over their menus, his fingertips tapping gently against her skin. She glances at him, and sees one of his eyebrows tilt up oh-so-slightly, so she opens her purse beneath the table, takes out her ring, and slips it on. She covers his hand with her own, lacing her fingers through his.

“… truly the best,” Veronica is saying when Betty tunes back into the conversation. “You _have_ to have the cheesecake here, Jughead, you’ll love it.”

“Well, for this price tag - ”

“Stop,” she chides him, but she’s smiling. “My treat.”

He smiles over at Betty and stage-whispers, “This is why I keep her around. Free cheesecake.”

“What better reason could there be?” she asks teasingly.

“Don’t encourage him,” Veronica says with a small roll of her eyes. There’s a beat of silence, and then she adds, “Actually, today - ”

At the same time, Jughead says, “Hey, so - ”

They both laugh. Across the table, Betty catches Archie’s eye, and is surprised to find that she can see hints of the anticipatory impatience she’s feeling on his face. Before she can give it much thought, however, both Jughead and Veronica begin to speak again, clearly having gotten their signals crossed about who is going to go first.

“We decided to stay married,” Jughead says unceremoniously, just as Veronica divulges, “We’re pregnant!”

They all stare at each other for a few seconds, startled, and then Betty focuses in on Veronica’s face, realizing that they have, yet again, sort of managed to steal at least some of her thunder. A series of expressions flit across her face, most of which are unreadable - there appears to be _something_ unimpressed in the mix, but it quickly gives way to an incredulous, but not unhappy, light in her eyes.

“Can I have _one thing_?” she asks, her dark eyes fixed on Jughead’s face, and for just an instant Betty feels terrible and thinks, judging by his expression, that Jughead does too, but then Veronica breathes a laugh and gives her head a fond shake, and his mouth curls into a relieved smile.

“Ronnie,” he says with a little shake of his own head. “A baby. Holy crap.”

“Probably literally,” Archie contributes, slipping an arm around Veronica’s shoulders. “There will probably be a lot of crap.”

“Archiekins,” she tsks, but the bright smile on her face seems unstoppable.

Betty shifts her gaze from Veronica over to Archie and breathes, “Oh my god, you’re going to be someone’s _dad_.” Tears prick suddenly at her eyes.

“Aw, Betts,” he says, giving Veronica a squeeze with the arm he’s got around her before he gets up and circles the table. “I know it’s terrifying,” he jokes, “but you don’t have to cry.” Like his wife, he’s got a giant smile on his face, and he holds out his arms to give her a hug; she gets to her feet to accept it.

“Not terrifying,” she murmurs. A couple of her tears fall down her cheeks as she leans back enough to look at him. “Amazing, Arch. You’re going to be great.”

His smile softens. “Your news is amazing, too,” he says, quietly but firmly. “I’m proud of you.”

Those words prompt her eyes to well up yet again, and she’s about to thank him when Veronica says, “What is _this_?” and grabs Betty’s hand gently to inspect her ring. “This isn’t your Vegas ring.”

“New ring for a non-drunk decision,” Betty explains with a little smile.

Veronica turns to Jughead. “You _sap_ ,” she accuses, her own eyes filling with tears before she wraps her arms around him in a hug. He returns her embrace, smiling at Betty over her shoulder.

“Let’s sit down,” Archie says, steering Betty back toward her chair and then guiding Veronica to hers with a hand at the small of her back once she pulls away from Jughead.

“You’re good for him,” Veronica says to Betty, sincerity clear in her eyes, her smile warm with acceptance.

Betty smiles back. “I’d say he’s pretty good for me, too,” she says, looking over at Jughead. He smiles, too, a small but deeply affectionate smile that’s meant just for her.

Veronica dabs at her eyes with her napkin and then says, “It’s early, but… we want you to be the baby’s godparents.”

Betty’s lips part in surprise. “Of course,” she says. “Of course, we’d love to.” She turns to Jughead again, and finds that he’s nodding.

“We’d be honoured,” he says, soft and serious.

Archie lifts his glass. “To Aunt Betty and Uncle Jughead,” he says.

“To baby Andrews,” Betty says, picking up her own glass.

“To all of us,” Veronica adds, picking up a glass of her own - water rather than Prosecco - and for the second time that day, for the second time out of the countless times that will undoubtedly fill the rest of her life, Jughead finds Betty’s hand with his own and holds it.

 

 

 

fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We can't believe that this has come to an end already! It was a lot of fun to write, made even better by all of your lovely feedback. We have been truly overwhelmed by all the love! Please also leave us a comment on this last little epilogue here and thank you all for reading!


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